Eternal Midnight
by Black Alya Wolf
Summary: Known only to mortals as Midna, she seeks just one thing: balance. And if balance isn't what she's going to get, chaos is what will wreak the multiverse until naught is left but the Void and love is ash in the memory of all survivors.10Rose, AU s4 end arc
1. In the Beginning

Hello, Black Alya Wolf speaking. If anyone's listening, it's a miracle that I hope will stick around for a little while longer. This is the Prologue, a thing a lot of people skip because they (usually rightly) assume it will be explained later in the story. Hell, a lot of _Author's Notes_ aren't even read so I might be typing this for no reason at all. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it would be a really wise idea for you to read this particular prologue, as boring and unrelated it may seem for a while. I got this idea randomly, really, and I don't think it's so much an idea as it is a story forcing me to write it out. Seriously. I mean, the prologue didn't even turn out quite like I expected it to. I just got an urge to write a DW fanfic with the first sentence already whispering in my ear.

So that's that. Now for more official business:

**Disclaimer: **Oh, stuff it.

**Pairings: **10Rose, JackJenny (but it doesn't play a too important part, so if you don't like it it doesn't matter), sorta MasterOC, MarthaTom, OCOC, and Donna/otherOC

**Warnings:** None yet, but maybe just a tiny bit on the language. Nothing really bad as yet, but knowing me it'll probably get worse. No smut, no gore, and definite angst from my OC. Oh, and I suppose that should be a warning, too. The OC, I mean. Big one. But don't worry about her, she's just helping me along.

**Summary: **Eternal Midnight, an impossibility of impossibilities that sets off a chain reaction of other impossiblities that were never meant to be. Known only to mortals as Midna, she seeks just one thing: balance. And if balance isn't what she's going to get, chaos is what will wreak the multiverse until naught is left but the Void and love is ash in the memory of all survivors. 10Rose, alternate end to the series 4 arc.

**Edited: **Sept. 28, 2008

* * *

**In the Beginning: Prologue**

She smiles. It's not pleasant, and she doesn't know why she does it, but do it she does. And she doesn't stop. Why should she? Why not? It's perfectly normal to smile, after all. That it probably doesn't reach her eyes means nothing. Right? And why should it? A smile is a smile is a smile, she always says. Well, not really, but there's a start to everything, yeah?

Her hair is very annoying, she decides through her smile, and not because it is ugly or frizzy or of an unwelcome color or unfashionable style — no, she certainly isn't irritated by that, not one bit (to what point would she care, anyway?) — but rather because it is long enough to constantly flap itself at her face. It's itchy. She wishes she'd thought to pull it back before _it_ happened. And don't even get her started on _it_. She could go on for hours and hours — talk for the whole world, she could, all about _it._ Yeah. _It._

Anyway…right! Hair! Annoyingly super-long, very browny-goldenlike, thick, unruly, infuriating-enough-to-yank-out-no-matter-the-pain-involved-in-doing-so hair. She should really do something about that someday. Like cut it. Ooh…_cut it_; lovely idea, that. Would help if she had an actual body to do that with. Maybe the length was her imagination, then. Well, her imagination should cut it. Like, seriously. Or just forget the hair enitirely. Yeah.

But she can't forget anything. Because of _it. It_ is something she loves, something she hates, something she would die for, live for, give everything for — mostly because she already has — something so far from her and yet so close, something just in reach yet too close to bear, something that has kept her from rest or sleep or eat or drink or any kind of comfort at all. It is a wonder she has not yet been driven mad. Or has she? It's hard to tell, really. What is madness to a madman? What is sanity to the sane? What did it mean if you did not know because you really fit neither?

She closes her vibrant yellow-green eyes (or the eyes she had as she remembers them and now doesn't have so really only exist in her imagination, which still hasn't cut her hair for her) and she smiles and does her best ignore her stupid hair. She basks in the warmth of the golden light that isn't really there because there can be no physical manifestation of the place where she must reside until she deems it safe to do otherwise, but it surrounds her, loves her, smothers her, destroys her, and she basks in it because there is nothing else to bask in...

She sighs, and it's a sigh of neither happiness, weariness, or resignation. It's a sigh just to be a sigh. Then she does it again, just because she likes it.

Child of contradiction, she knows she is. That's what they all call her. Sort of. Most cultures call her the Dark Angel, actually, but Child of Contradiction seems more fitting, more apt to explain who she is. Or chaos. She's pretty chaotic, never following the rules, always something completely different to that which the expectations of the universe have in store her. That could be who she is. _What_ she is. The old child, the wise fool, the dark light, the stupid little fifteen-year-old girl who lost everything only to get the chance to take it all back so she could lose it again. Yep. That's her in a nutshell. Sorta.

Where is she? She doesn't know, at least not completely. She has an idea, but she doesn't _know_. She doesn't know much anymore, really. Her memories should be fuzzy, and you would think they would be, but they're not. They are sharp and clear, achingly so, so that she knows so much she can't say she actually knows anything at all. Could get confusing at times, that.

Maybe it's because she is in Hell. Sorta. Kinda. As mentioned, she doesn't really know, but she has an idea, and the idea feels like Hell. No up, no down, no light, no dark - and no substantial thoughts, come to think of it - talk about scatterbrained! She can't observe anything, either, which makes it kind of hard to do anything, particularly as she can't feel where she begins and this place ends and what she's actually feeling at any given moment - whether she's lonely or sad or pleased or impatient or utterly at peace. It's a kind of excruciating torture that makes absolutely no sense at all and is, therefore, a perfectly fitting self-afflicted punishment for her.

An "angel", a savior, goddess, superwoman-thing made to suffer in Hell. Fancy that.

Wait..._'fancy'_? Wasn't usually something she used in her daily vocabulary, but things had changed. Oh, how things had changed.

An ordinary girl, living an ordinary life. An ordinary girl who became extraordinary and got treated differently for it. Sounds like a coming-of-age story, if she were to be honest with herself — as she was, mostly. When she wanted to be. Well, when she wanted to want to be. Well, when she…never mind.

Ordinary girl, yes. With strange thoughts that cropped up occasionally, thoughts no one else could ever dream. Thoughts of darkness and of light, of right and wrong and everything in between. An ordinary girl who understood nothing and yet comprehended everything. An ordinary girl who could sense every single emotion of every single living thing in every single universe in every single galaxy on every single planet, continent, island, country, state, province, county, district, city, town, village and hideaway during every single second that ever existed or ever would exist. An ordinary girl whose eyes could literally pierce the fabric of another's soul, delve into their hearts, their minds, learn their deepest, darkest secrets yet cursed to tell no one.

An ordinary girl who wanted none of that and yet would die if it was ever taken from her.

Her smile fades into a smirk. Why she smirks, she doesn't know. It's just something her not-a-body feels like doing, she supposes. Maybe it's her subconscious doing it. She can't control it, certainly. Can't control much of anything anymore, her. Nope. Not her. Not ever. Never ever; not since _it_, at least.

_It._ Enigmatic, that word, if it is not explained beforehand or right afterward or somewhere in between. In between? Did that even make any sense? Of course it didn't. She's not sure she cares anymore. Well, _yeah_, she _cares_, she cares a lot; she cares like no one's ever cared before, but she cares so much it's almost like she doesn't. And that hurts. It hurts so much she's been made numb with the pain of it. And what did that say about her?

Everything, she muses, as everything says everything about her. Everything is a part of her. She is the Core, after all, and what is the Core but everything that the Hell that surrounds it isn't? And Hell is nothing, so she must be everything. Or something. It makes sense to her, anyway. In her head. Mostly. Sort of. Kind of. Well, technically kind of, but that…that really wasn't the point. Really. She thinks, and hates how she loses track of all the different things she's capable of thinking at the same time, and finally remembers the subject at hand, the subject boring into her mind like drills and woodpeckers and sledgehammers.

_It_ had been nothing dramatic, no flare or flash of light or warning or death or threats or remarkable discoveries; _it_ was just what she referred to as the singular event that turned her ordinary life upside down. Well, if it was really upside down she probably would've been dead, but she isn't so her life isn't _really_ upside down, just…_figuratively!_ That's it! _Figuratively_ upside down, her life had been turned.

Had it been yesterday? Nah, just an hour or so ago. An hour of an eternity. Or a dozen. Or a million. Lot of eternities, that, especially considering how dreadfully long they were. Maybe it was only two, come to think of it. Yeah. Two eternities lived in two seconds. That sounded about right.

Her universe, the _Foundation_, the first of them all and from which branched infinity more, is torn and shattered under her feet. And who is at fault but her? Who is at fault but the one who could see and understand everything yet was blind as a bat and so utterly naïve? Destroyed her own universe, she did, even if she hadn't actually meant to.

No. She'd simply lost control. One moment, one little bit of frustration and anger and horror and terror and betrayal and hurt and a tiny bit of love that she should have known she would never have been allowed to feel for herself without a hefty price, and it was all gone. Everything she knew, everything that had made her who she was, everything that she was ever _supposed_ to know tumbling about around her ears, _chaos_ as the blurry lines between reality and dreams were erased, _chaos_ as the calm night of trillions and trillions and so many beyond-trillions of deaths shattered the multiverse.

On her shoulders. All on her shoulders. All because of her. Because she wouldn't die with them, and she'd had so much more to lose. She lost reality and everything and everyone within it. She heard their screams, heard their pleas, knew she could stop them, knew she could save them, and yet she had been too confused and surprised and angry and numb and so, _so_ lost that she had done nothing. Just watched them burn, watched all the galaxies and planets burn at her fingertips, her touch, her thoughts, and did nothing to save them, nothing to stop it, nothing to end the misery, the despair, and the incessant, neverending _burning_.

It hurt. It hurt beyond belief, beyond anything. She was suffering, and so wanted others to suffer because she was lonely and had no desire to ever be so alone, ever again. But at the same time, she knew, from her upraising, from her _family_ that just because she hurt didn't mean everyone else had to as well, and so instead she tried to rectify things. Rectifying meant making things worse, in the end, like making a room messier to clean it. She became _"chosen"_, chosen to do things no one wanted done but which had to be done anyway and only she was willing to pay for it.

So she moved on, moved beyond the _Foundation_ and onto the others, destroying _— so much blood, so much death, such darkness, such monstrosities —_ and she hated herself for it, hated everything that she was, but she couldn't stop, could never stop, because no one could stop her, no one could keep her from doing what she wanted to least, not even herself…not even love.

And from the ashes of such destruction came Hell, and she its Core. And from the Core burst more, burst what she had consumed, burst everything she had taken, everything she had never even wanted to begin with. She locked her body in a place no one could ever find, trapped her mind, heart and soul in the Core, and vowed never to leave, never to let herself reign over the worlds again.

It isn't her fault. She tried to tell herself that, at first. Tried to tell herself she'd been forced to do it, but now she does not bother. She knows what happened and knows what could have been done to prevent it and exactly what she hadn't done to keep everything from collapsing.

Her fault.

_One_ moment; one fatal, crucial second had been all it had taken for her to rewrite existence as it was known everywhere. One second where she had merely had to trust someone other than the one she'd trusted, to love someone else, to throw herself at death and not at some idiotic attempt to rescue anyone from something they didn't rescuing from. A chance to rewrite everything. She is not a goddess, not a god, not a deity, no matter her reputation or the stories or the legends or the Rebirth she had caused. Oh no, definitely not more than that. She is _human_. That's all. A human. _Impossibly_, a human, a human whose soul refused to die, no matter the body she once resided or the blood she'd once inherited. She'd simply taken the ashes of everything she was (and is) at fault for and consumed it, took it with her into Hell and revived it, convinced it all to begin anew, convinced it all that existing is worth existing. There is nothing divine about that.

But no matter how hard she tries, no matter how many universes she brings back and gives life to once more, life that should never ever have been taken and never would again, it will not bring back the _Foundation_. The _Foundation_ had been the foundation, after all. You can't have the start be a start a second time. Not when it was long dead before it even had a chance to truly begin.

She finds, however, that as her humanity gradually returns and she loses much of the power she was never meant to have to begin with, she more and more appreciates…well, _everything_. From the way her mother's arms had felt around her as she held her tight as a child to the way an old dying man's voice sounded so sweet as he sang his last breath that it always breaks her heart to hear it. She really is human, after all, no matter the evidence to the contrary, and human is all she will ever be. Metaphorically speaking, at least. She finds that there is beauty in life, _all_ life, even her own, and all the sufferings and joys within it because life is the one thing that ties everything together, the one thing that keeps the stars pulsing in beat with the music resonating from planets in perfect rhythm to the beats of mortal and immortal and immoral and moral hearts. She finds an appreciation for love and hatred, the balance of light and dark and the chaotic harmony in which they live. Hatred for no reason and hatred for good reason, love for friends and love for lovers, and then every damn thing that went between those. She finds that there is something out there worth more than just dying or fighting for, but something worth suffering life for.

And, she vows as she sees though herself and through the many windows of Hell the separation of the kind of love that should never ever be broken, a love between a storm and a wolf, between a darkness and a light and the perfect kind of chaotic harmony she has come to realize is extraordinarily similar to the unique energies of the _Foundation_, she will fight for that love and that balance until her final breath — a breath, she knows, that will come soon to her, or else will last forever in her defending of a love transcending the depth of all others. It is a life, she is aware, that she does not deserve, but a life she must and will live nevertheless. It is not her choice, but the choice of the force that made her destroy all those universes all that time ago, the choice of the one some people may like to call God but which she likes to refer to as the thing that makes everything _tick_.

She considers, as she contemplates how she will manipulate the freeing of her forever unfound mortal body, that love is not about letting other people wriggle into your heart, as she had once believed — it's about giving other people the chance to do the same, as she'd never done for fear that whoever came into contact with her would only end up getting hurt in end. (And it was because of that mistake that anyone was ever hurt at all; a bitterly ironic end to something she never deserved to have.) It's easy to befriend someone and stay distant; be loyal to them and get no loyalty back. It's easier that way. No obligations beyond all that you're willing to give. No worries. Just a bit of laughin' at oneself when it's all said and done. And then move on. Just move on.

But you can't follow that policy forever, she realizes, and her smirk becomes a shining smile once more, and the golden light around her pulses in time with the beating of her heart (_not_ metaphorically speaking) on a planet - a real, solid planet - so far away. You'll become a monster if you let others walk all over you and do as they please and wreak what havoc and chaos they can just because you believe you can't stop it. Hell, she already has become that monster. Not living, just existing, surviving, because it's all she's ever done.

It isn't enough. It's never enough. It never will be. And you can pray and say 'never say never ever' but it doesn't change reality.

You only have one lifetime. At the end of it you'll say it passed in the blink of an eye. Just a blink. And as you close your eyes one last time, you'll remember it all. Everything.

Bring to your grave a sense that you have lived a life worth dying for.

Such is the decision of Eternal Midnight, the wise child who went from a suffering angel to a human who desires so much more — who changed from a savior to a monster to a suffering angel to a surviving martyr in the blink of an eye. Just a blink.


	2. The Wolf in Her Cage

**The Wolf in Her Cage: Chapter One  
(Takes place right after the episode _Turn Left_)**

"End of the universe? What do you mean by that?"

The Doctor turned to face her. The expression on his face, a bizarre mixture of hope, grief, horror and fear, was a myriad truly impossible to understand. Donna stared at him, watching as he ran trembling fingers through his hair, took a deep breath in through his nose, and turned away from her again without an answer.

"Doctor?" said Donna cautiously, no little fear rising in her voice. "What's going on? What's 'Bad Wolf'?"

"It's her," he muttered, almost to himself. Suddenly, he spun around to face her. "You said that she said 'the darkness is coming', what did she mean by that?"

Taken off guard, Donna stammered.

"I…I don't know…it's…a bit blurry, I can't —,"

"Try, Donna," the Doctor urged, his deep brown eyes wild and strangely comforting. "Try to remember! What did she mean?"

Donna's eyes closed. Images flitted past beneath her eyelids, too quickly for her to comprehend any of them. A dim murmur of voices, none of them decipherable, pounded in her ears. Feelings — fear, panic, determination, confusion — rushed in her blood, making her head swim. She swayed, but felt no real connection to her body; she was an outsider, a watcher as her body started to fall, a spectator as the Doctor rushed forward to hold her steady.

"I don't know," she felt herself murmuring. "There was…there were things that happened, things that you stopped, but you…you died, you weren't able to…and then, and then the woman came. The blond woman. She…I don't know, helped out, or something. She knew things…it was like she travelled with you, once. I think she said she had. Lucky her."

She heard the Doctor's sharp intake of breath, so slight she would have probably missed it except he was still trying to hold her up and was too close to disguise anything. Her eyes opened and she swayed dangerously again. The interior of the TARDIS — glowing so strangely with emergency crimson light — spun in circles around her.

"Who was she, Doctor? She wouldn't tell me her name. I don't remember much, but I remember that. Who was that woman?"

The Doctor stepped away as Donna leaned herself against a pillar. He swallowed harshly, his eyes darker than she could ever remember them appearing since she had first met him.

"We need to-"

But he didn't seem able to finish his sentence. He faced the console, peering intently at the controls. Donna suspected he was only doing that to have something to look at. "We need to return to Earth," he said at last, fingering a lever with one hand and an oddly shaped knob with the other.

"Doctor?"

He didn't turn around. She didn't expect him to. He continued playing with the controls, dancing around the console in an attempt to get the ship in flight. His brows furrowed as he paused, looking suspiciously at the glowing column when it stayed determinedly still. With a frown, he tried again.

"I'm sorry," said Donna softly. She carefully let go of the pillar, gradually feeling the ground beneath her feet come to a hesitant rest.

"Defender of the Earth!" he shouted suddenly, from the other side of the console, turning to her again with a strange fire in his eyes. "That's who she was. Is. Defender of the Earth!"

"Sounds about right," Donna agreed, hiding her confusion. "Sure acted like it."

Expectantly, he pressed down on a lever. Nothing happened. The Doctor sighed, then reached down to a little shelf underneath the console, coming up with what looked like a small mallet. He started beating random bits on the console, Donna watching bemusedly.

"What's wrong with the light?" she asked, looking at the central column with interest. It wasn't green anymore, certainly, and not nearly as comforting. In fact, everything about the TARDIS right now seemed…wrong.

The Doctor started to speak, putting away the mallet in resignation that it wasn't helping, but then suddenly the time rotor began wheezing, a harsher sound than Donna had ever heard it make before. If she didn't know any better, she'd say it sounded like it was sick, or about to be.

"No, no, nononono!" shouted the Doctor, the singular words running together. He went off in a frenzy, hitting controls, running around the room, and Donna felt her knees buckle as the ship jerked.

She gritted her teeth as struggled to keep her balance and grabbed onto a railing to assist. The TARDIS gave another shuddering jerk, almost tearing the railing from her hands and nearly sending the Doctor flying across the room. She gasped as the floor tried to buck her off like an angry bull. "What the bloody hell did you do?"

"I don't know!" the Doctor yelled, clutching at the console, unable to stand straight enough to attempt anything more in the way of regaining control.

When at last the rotor came to a halt and Donna felt it was safe to brave walking across the floor, the door burst open, clean light filtering inside, banishing, temporarily, the crimson _wrongness_ of the TARDIS.

"Martha!" yelped the Doctor, surprised. The other doctor — a real one, Donna mused wryly — looked just as confused as Donna felt.

"What are you doing here?" asked Martha as she made her way up the ramp. She frowned at the central column. "What's wrong with the TARDIS?"

The Doctor straightened.

"I don't know, it's almost like —,"

"It looks like it did when the Master made the paradox machine," Martha interrupted, studying it critically.

"A what?" Donna repeated, lost.

The Doctor grimaced at her. "Long story," he explained. Donna rolled her eyes.

"I'll tel you later," Martha mouthed.

"Martha Jones," said the Doctor, and Martha looked back at him, bemused.

"Milligan, actually," she corrected, and Donna noticed for the first time that there was a golden band on her left hand.

"Are you—" she couldn't finish.

A smile broke out on Martha's dark face, and her eyes lit up. "Yeah!"

"Congratulations!" Donna exclaimed, and suddenly forgot about the direness of everything else. She bounded up to her friend and embraced her tightly. Martha laughed.

"Thank you," she said. "Doctor?"

He was looking away from them, his jaw set. Donna stepped back, exchanging glances with Martha.

"Something wrong?"

"Very wrong," the Doctor said. His voice was hard. "I didn't bring the TARDIS here; she brought herself."

"She?" Donna repeated with a snort. The Doctor didn't even spare her a glance.

"The TARDIS is alive. She was grown, not built. And something is very, _very_ wrong with her," he stroked the console lightly, and the light flickered in response. "Where are we?" he asked Martha.

"Cardiff," Martha replied. "Right on top of the rift. The team's out chasing Weevils in London. Weird, I know, but that's why they aren't here. I only just got here by train."

His expression, or what Donna could see of it, did not change. He did, however, look up at the ceiling and sigh breathily.

"I share a telepathic link with the TARDIS. Sort of. Well, almost sort-of. But it's not there anymore. I can't hear her!" he sounded frustrated.

"Maybe she's sleeping?" Martha suggested lamely.

"Maybe." But his tone said anything but.

The Doctor walked around the console, to the display screen. He fiddled with the controls in front of it, and the monitor flickered tentatively. Tongue between his lips in concentration, he tried again.

"You can fix her, though," said Donna confidently. "Right?" she added, after a few seconds of dead silence.

"Oh yeah," said the Doctor, obviously trying to copy her earlier strength. "No problem. Stabilize the field of hydroelectric atoms in the amygdalic disc in the temporal distortion magnets and it'll be right as rain! Not that I can really imagine anything being _literally_ 'right as rain'; honestly, what is it with you humans? You go on and on about how rain is depressing and gloomy and then come up with something that says the complete opposite!"

Donna wondered if the Doctor was taking advantage of their lack of knowledge of time machines to talk nonsense that sounded good. The slight on humans was easy enough to ignore, though, as he did it all the time. From the disgruntled look she got from Martha, she assumed she felt the same.

"Aha!" he cried triumphantly, and, as if on cue, the screen brightened, filling with symbols and numbers that gave Donna a headache just to look at. Martha seemed curious, though.

"What's it say?"

The smile on the Doctor's face faded, slipping away like oozing slime, and Donna knew that whatever it was, it definitely wasn't a good thing.

"The TARDIS's consciousness is being repressed," he muttered incredulously. "It's like there's nothing left; she's a newborn in an old body!"

"How is that possible?" said Donna.

"I dunno," he frowned, typing something. The screen changed to a view of the area outside the TARDIS. Donna and Martha joined him, peering over his shoulders. "It seems like it's coming from some sort of interference outside the TARDIS," he said.

"Something's interfering with the TARDIS?" Martha repeated dubiously. "How is that possible?"

"It isn't," the Doctor admitted, and there was a pause in which they all exchanged knowing looks. Simultaneously, they all burst into wide, full-blown grins of unadulterated excitement.

"Wait, look!" Donna shouted suddenly, making Martha and the Doctor jump and stare, following her finger.

"What?"

"I don't see anything."

"There," said Donna, jabbing a finger at the screen, her heart pounding. "Right there! Don't you see her?"

"Her? Donna, what are you talking about? There's just a fountain, no one is—"

"No!" Donna insisted, shaking her head. "Right _there_! It's her, that woman I saw in the parallel universe!"

"Parallel universe?" Martha repeated, wrinkling her nose confusion. "When did you—"

She was interrupted by a hoarse, strangled whisper from the Doctor, who was staring wide-eyed at Donna, like he'd seen a ghost or something.

"It can't be."

"Can't you _see_ her?" said Donna desperately. The Doctor shook his head slowly.

Then, before she could even blink, he was at the doors of the TARDIS, throwing them open. Sunlight gleamed down on Cardiff, but nothing appeared out of the ordinary. In fact, for a place so close to the rift and the Hub, it was downright peaceful. People milled about in the distance, but otherwise there was no one anywhere. No one standing at the fountain, certainly.

"See? She's right there!" uttered Donna in a harsh whisper, her and Martha having followed him. The Doctor and Martha looked at her like she was crazy.

"Donna," said Martha, voicing all their thoughts. "There's no one there."

"Yes, there _is_!" she insisted adamantly, pointing rudely at the blonde wearing a blue leather jacket and black jeans.

"Martha," said the Doctor. He sounded partly fascinated, partly disappointed, and a third confused. "I think Donna might actually be seeing someone,"

"So?"

"So," the Doctor puffed out a breath, looking at Donna. She flinched at the look in his eyes. "I think Donna should go talk to her."

"Talk to _who_?" Martha asked again, aggravated.

"Maybe she'll tell Donna," he said, with a fleeting smile that didn't reach his eyes.

"Anything in particular you want me to tell her?" Donna muttered, still not quite believing neither of them could see that _infuriating_ woman.

"No," said the Doctor immediately, but his voice was curiously a few octaves higher than normal. "No, just…get what you can out of her, I suppose. Just be careful. We don't know if she…well, just be careful, all right?"

Donna gave him a doubtful look, then glanced at Martha, who had her eyebrows lowered in a state of utter perplexity. She almost laughed at the trio that they made.

She looked to Blondie. Whoever she was, she was facing away from them, but whether or not that was deliberate, Donna didn't know. But the clothes, hair and height were distinctive from the few distorted glimpses her memory allowed of her, so she determinedly sucked in a breath and stalked towards her, two gazes burning into her back as she went.

"Who are you, then?"

It hadn't been what she had meant to say first, honestly. The words just popped out of her mouth before her mind gave them any permission.

"I told you," said the woman without turning around, her downtown London accent belying a mind, Donna was sure, could be absolutely devious; "just one wrong word and reality could come crashing down around us. That's why the Doctor can't see me. I've got a modified perception filter and temporal...well, a temporal scrambler, I guess you could call it, so the TARDIS can't recognize me, either."

Donna walked over to her side. Blondie continued to peer into the watery depths before them as if completely unaware of Donna's existence.

Right.

"Your _name_ can't possibly —,"

"Yeah, it can," Blondie interrupted her, and her head turned to look directly at Donna. Her hazel eyes swam with something unidentifiable. "I'm technically not even supposed to be here, not this time. I could tell you my name, but that would be like shoutin' at the universe that I'm here. Trust me, you don't want that to happen. Much better off just knowing my face."

She turned back to the fountain.

"You said…" Donna paused, trying to remember. The details were so muddled it wasn't even funny. "You said I was going to die, and I did, sort of. How could you know that when that universe wasn't even _real_?"

Part of her wasn't even aware of what she was saying. Most of her wanted to tackle this woman to the ground and wring her neck until she got some straight answers. Briefly, she wondered what she looked like, supposedly talking to herself, and looked over her shoulder to see the Doctor and Martha deep in conversation, somber expressions galore.

The woman didn't answer for a while. She was staring up at the sky now, apparently unfazed by the sun.

"And why are you always wearing the same clothes?"

She laughed a bitter laugh in response, and Donna was taken slightly aback.

"It's been a long day," she said with little sincere mirth.

"Yeah, I'll bet."

"Donna Noble," said the woman, as if feeling out her name. "Do you have any idea how many of you I've met?"

Donna couldn't reply to that for the life of her.

"I've been to maybe a dozen different universes, some with me, all of them with you, a few with Martha, and absolutely none of them with the Doctor, except this one. He doesn't exist anywhere but here. Funny," she laughed, and it truly seemed genuine this time, "I was born in this universe, and now that another universe has gotten used to me, I'm not welcome here anymore."

Something twinged in the back of Donna's mind, a vague, passing memory that she felt was important but flitted away too quickly for her snatch at it.

"I'm sorry," she said sincerely, and the woman smiled at her. It was a dazzling smile, a bright one that made her seem like the most beautiful woman in the entire world.

A few moments of comfortable silence passed before either of them spoke again.

"Donna," said the woman, and her voice was set and even, like this was the conversation she'd come here for, "since I am here, and you're here, I might as well take advantage of it. I need you to tell the Doctor something for me. Can you do that?"

"Yeah, o' course," Donna replied in an instant. "Why wouldn't I?"

Blondie flashed that smile again.

"Tell 'im that…" she hesitated, her smile faltering for just a moment. "Tell him that Darlig ulv Stranden is the weakest point for the Void right now. Canary Wharf will break right after that, but I've got that one covered."

She took a small, shuddering breath before letting it out slowly.

"What?" said Donna, half-laughing. "What's that supposed mean, 'the weakest point for the Void'? What is the 'Void'?"

The woman's expression withdrew until Donna found herself incapable of reading any part of it.

"The Void is the darkness," she said, and her tone seemed hollow. "It's nothing — no light or thought or anythin' — some people call it Hell. It's the only thing that keeps all of the universes from blending together like some sort of really awful milkshake. Right now, it's coming. It's eating up the multiverse - all the different universes - one by one, 'cause some idiot ripped a hole in the fabric of its defences."

"Who would do something like that?" gasped Donna, horrified.

The woman shook her head with a tiny smile. "I don't think they did it on purpose, not for that, anyway. I think they were just trying to escape."

"Escape? Escape _what_? I thought you said the Void was _nothing_!"

"It is. It's just…there are…_things_, creatures that got trapped in there, because there wasn't anywhere else for them to go. Things just as bad as the Void itself."

"Like what?"

"Daleks. Cybermen," she waved a dismissive hand. "Other things, too, but those are the main ones."

"And what are they, the stuff of nightmares?" She meant it as somewhat of a joke, but her voice cracked and she looked away so the woman wouldn't see how terrified she really was.

"Yeah," said Blondie seriously. "Yeah, they are. And after we deal with the Void, we'll have to deal with whatever caused all this to start with."

"Any idea what it is?"

The woman shook her head.

"Could be one Dalek, could be all the Cybermen. Could be everything that's ever been trapped there. It's impossible to tell right now, though."

"Is it?"

"The Doctor'll figure it out," said the woman with such confidence it surprised Donna. "He always does."

_"Were you and him…"_

No reply.

Donna shook herself from the flashback.

"But you need to tell him," Blondie continued. "The barriers are weakest at Darlig ulv Stranden — that's in Norway, by the way — and as soon as the Void breaks through there, it'll come out at Canary Wharf, too. Tell him — tell him Bad Wolf will help out when the time is right."

Her head snapped to the side suddenly, like she was listening for something.

"I have to go now, Donna. Promise me you'll never leave him?"

Confused, Donna nodded. What else could she do?

"When will I see you again? Will I ever? What about the Doctor? Will you ever see him?"

So many questions, not nearly enough time. Ironic, that.

"Heads up in about four days, Donna Noble," said the woman, as Donna had glanced over her shoulder at the Doctor as she spoke of him. When she looked back, no one was there.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright,  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark,  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage,  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Rose hit her head against the wall. Repeatedly, but softly, so she wouldn't actually bash her brains in, as she felt like doing. Guilt and pain lanced through her every nerve, and she felt like screaming. She was completely alone, though, so she supposed she could scream if she really wanted to. But it wouldn't do any good. It didn't before.

Silent tears trickled down her cheeks, and she hated herself for it. Hadn't she cried enough already? She didn't deserve to do it anymore — didn't even have the _right_ — so why was she standing here with smudged makeup and wet paths of the choking agony of continued loss on her face?

Bloody hell, the multiverse was ending and all she could think about was how unfair it was that she still couldn't see _him_. Pathetic. That was all she ever was. _Pathetic._

Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage.

She banged her head harder, hating the voices in her head; the singing,  
iincessant singing that seemed to follow her everywhere she went. As far as she could tell, it didn't mean anything. It was just reference. Reference to four completely different people all in one thing together.

Her headache intensified.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Everything was as they'd left it. White walls, with maybe a layer of dust that hadn't been there before. Two levers on each side. Super-strength magnaclamps stuck next to them — not close enough, she thought bitterly. Computers behind her, unused for the last few years. It seemed to her like no one had been here at all, since…then.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

She stopped the banging, since it obviously wasn't helping.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Nope. Definitely not helping.

She groaned out loud.

Not for the first time, she wished Donna were with her. Donna kept the damn singing away, brought some relief, some sense of quiet that she never had anywhere else.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Any minute now, she thought. Any minute and the Void would rip apart the wall she was staring at. Any minute and she would have to release Bad Wolf. With any luck, the Doctor was in Norway doing his part.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Rose gritted her teeth and told herself she could endure it.

In every other universe, there had been no defense. Oh, she had tried—God knows she had tried so hard—but the Void had always consumed them in the end. Then again, none of them had ever had the Doctor. Just her and Donna in most cases, and occasionally Martha and Jack. Sometimes she even got to work with herself.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

She fought the urge to tear out her hair in frustration. Never went away, this singing. Ever since she had discovered the messily sealed breach at Torchwood.

It felt like a forever ago.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

The singing was getting louder, she realized. More constant, less distant. It was almost time.

Any second now.

Maybe she would get to talk with the Doctor after this. After this, the defenses around this universe would be stronger than any of the others anywhere, so she figured it would probably be able to stand it. The jumper ought to be ready by then.

And if it didn't work…what the hell would she do?

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage. _

Rose, acting on impulsive anger, pounded her fists on the wall as hard as she could. Then she actually punched it, not feeling a damn thing as blood poured from her bared knuckles.

It was relief, in a really morbid, sort of twisted way, though she had never been one for self-mutilation.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light._

Donna Noble. The most important woman in the whole of creation; redheaded, hot-tempered, innocent and full of wonder and life and self-deprecation.

_Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark._

Martha Jones — no, she saw with a smile as Bad Wolf prowled restlessly within her mind — Milligan. Martha Milligan. Good for her. She means more than she realizes, too, Rose thought.

_Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage,_

Doctor. Her Doctor. She'd promised to keep him safe, so long ago, and so she had vowed for forever that she would. He'd never be alone, never be without the love of life and humanity she'd seen in him so long ago now. Never.

_Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

And her world exploded into silvery flame.


	3. Armageddon

**Armageddon: Chapter Two**

She awakens. She breathes, smiles, opens her eyes, and blinks a little. Her hair is too long, she notes, but as a rising feeling of absolute giddiness takes over her she finds she does not care for once.

It's hard, but she turns her head to look around. Everything's exactly as it was when she left it, but the ice around her has melted. She is naked, she realizes, but not cold, though water clings to her like perhaps a young man with an incurable illness would cling to life. The light is bright; she and she alone can withstand it, can withstand the radiation, because she made it, made it to protect her body. Her thoughts have a strange feel to it, echoing, echoing like you would hear an echo in a cave, only this cave is alive, very alive.

She almost takes a step forward, forward onto the diamonds, the sparkles, the wonder, but then chastises herself. Her body's been locked up for who-knew-how-long, after all. Her muscles, frozen or not, would need to recover. She decides to speed this up, feeling impatient after all of her long waiting. Her powers are scarce, yes, but enough, particularly right now, at the start of this very new beginning. She feels warmth spread to her fingertips, a glow of golden radiance overtaking her pale white skin. She feels pain, excruciating pain, as her muscles undergo sudden, premature growth. Feeling confident, she lets it go on longer than she strictly needs to, so that when she finally straightens (when had she knelt to begin with?), she feels powerful, eager, ready for adventure and life.

She has not awakened. She is reborn.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX **

Rose panted with exertion as Bad Wolf, curling up contentedly, retreated. The wall became solid again, no longer a mass of white. She expected exhaustion to knock her over, but it didn't. She felt oddly empty.

Bile came up in her throat unexpectedly, and she doubled over, releasing it from its confines gladly. It splattered all over the floor, and she turned away to keep from doing it again. The voices in her head started to dim in her mind, so she spat out the last of the bile, wiped her mouth on her sleeve, and held her head high. Her stomach continued to churn, but now that the singing was fading away, she felt she could handle it.

She was being Called again.

Bad Wolf barked at her, and she jumped. A bluish-silver flash, like lightning, blinded her, and she braced herself for the disorientation of appearing suddenly in a completely different place.

She certainly didn't expect, however, to arrive in Bad Wolf Bay. In Pete's World. She very nearly lost control of Bad Wolf in that moment, angry, furious even, at everything and the world and the multiverse for doing this to her.

Especially when the singing started again.

Sighing, Rose looked at a device attached to her wrist. It seemed like a normal digital watch at first glance, but it had more than just numbers and dates on it. What was a watch, after all, to a one-time time-traveller? No, when this all started, she, Mickey, and one of Torchwood's techs invented something that would keep track of time as it was in whatever universe or planet she was on, whatever date for the same, and which universe she was actually in so she wouldn't get confused. Most of the time she could tell just by the _feel_ of the place, but it didn't hurt to make sure she had extra measures in place.

Sadly, tears prickling at her eyes again, Rose gazed out over the sea for several seconds before reaching for Bad Wolf, prodding it awake. It blinked at her somewhat grumpily, and then the world was a mess of swirling color and more blue-silver lightning as she transported herself back to Torchwood.

"Rose!"

It was Mickey, completely unsurprised that she had suddenly appeared from nowhere and a flash of light in his office.

"Hi, Mickey," she said glumly. "How long have I been gone?"

"Just a week. Any luck?"

"Yeah," she swallowed. "Closed it off real good."

Mickey smiled widely at her, but she could see the worry in his eyes.

"I knew you could do it," he said. "Do you want something? I know you don't exactly _need_ a lift, but if you want I could drive you home, take you to get something to eat…"

"Mickey," Rose smiled; he was always looking out for her somehow, "thanks. But I have a report to file now."

"You can take a break you know," he called after her retreating back, and she stopped, then looked over her shoulder.

"There's still more to come," she said solemnly. "The Void won't get to the Doctor now, yeah, but I'll still be Called somewhere else, won't I?" Her eyes sting with fresh yet unshed tears at this thought. Counting this recent one, she'd only ever been able to save one universe, and even then she hadn't been alone. "'Sides, we still got something or someone out there who needs a stern talking to," she tries to smile cheekily, but Mickey believes it just as much as she does.

"Right," said Mickey, sensing that she just wanted to be let go. "Off you go, then. Might want to change your clothes, too."

"Oh, shut up," she laughed, and he grinned. She started toward the door again. "Go ahead an' tell mum I'm back, but I'm probably not gonna finish in time for supper."

There was sadness in his eyes Mickey replied.

"Yeah," he said. "I'll do that."

Rose walked the long hallways of Torchwood, greeting any workers that she passed to let everyone know that she was back…again. Surreptitious looks passed between most of them when they thought she wouldn't notice, and she knew what they were thinking. _When is she going to disappear next?_

It had become a habit, really, ever since the handful that watched the Void (and the wall that manifested the sealed breach) for any sign of dangerous activity had found a small glitch in the reports. It actually turned out to be a small "glitch" that was a very _big_ problem, and when this was reported to Rose, the "Head Field Investigation Advisor" (which was more of a fancy title than anything else, as she really covered just about everything there was to do at Torchwood) she had suddenly disappeared without a trace. It had been her first trip back to her home universe, "The Doctor's World", as they called it, and she'd discovered that the universe was royally screwed — someone had messed with it, and there was a parallel universe _within_ it, a big one. That was the first time she'd met Donna.

Then she came back to Pete's World, and had to spend several hours convincing everyone else that she wasn't insane. When she finally had, it was only to disappear again a day later, to a completely different, unrelated universe, where she found that the multiverse was ripping apart at the seams. This was why, with the help of Bad Wolf, they created the special watch.

It had come as a shock to her when, the night after she had said her final goodbye to the Doctor in Norway, Bad Wolf woke, howling in pain and agony, a perfect mirror of everything she felt herself. From that point on, she found that she had, to a very, very, _very_ limited degree, the same omniscient power she'd had when she had absorbed the time vortex on Satellite Five. She could feel the Earth — or whatever planet she happened to be on — turning under her feet, a great big ball of life, wonder, horror and tragedy. She could see into the future every now and then, but not often, and only when she and Bad Wolf were at full strength, which wasn't often. When she dreamed, she dreamed of the past, and she was painfully aware of every atom in existence that came within three feet of her. It wasn't a long range, no, but it was nearly enough to drive her insane. She had some control over these atoms as well — she experimented, sometimes, even when she wasn't supposed to — and found that she could turn things to dust and back again when she had half a mind to. She could turn air into water, water into stone, stone into fire, fire into lightning — she'd had a little too much fun one day and created a little thunderstorm that followed her around everywhere she went for a whole day before she figured out how to get rid of it.

One of the most useful things she got from Bad Wolf was teleportation. She could travel any distance across whatever universe she happened to be in a split second and a flash of "lightning", with a just a bit of tweaking of the atoms in and around her own body. It had taken six months for her to perfect it, but it was definitely worth the effort, because she do it _anywhere_. Especially handy when she was kidnapped or captured, given that they weren't aware of her abilities and consequently had a field of electrons safeguarding her escape attempts.

When she had first realized that Bad Wolf — the most solid reminder of the time she had spent travelling with Doctor — was still with her, Rose had lived her life with a fear that at any second Bad Wolf would be taken from her. But it never was, and she wasn't sure anymore if it could be.

It was beyond useful for Torchwood, she found, and over the next six years she proceeded to do everything she could to give the unofficial title "Defender of the Earth" true meaning, beyond just a little joke between the Doctor and her. She fought Dragnorox, Garguatas, Foryst Lazinurus, Liazzahrds, Yuiths, Reglaths, Verganis, Hothis, Krystal Fragneltons, and more. She acted as ambassador and allied Earth with five whole galaxies, six solar systems and seventeen planets. She salvaged unused technology of broken worlds and helped integrate it into their own — it took her going back to take her A levels and then a few years at Uni, though, before she felt she could even begin to hold her own in a technological conversation. Useful as Bad Wolf was, it didn't grant her instantaneous education.

Presently, Rose stepped into her own office and, after grimacing in distaste at the utter mess she'd have to sort through on her desk, she passed through another door and into her temp quarters. Not many workers at Torchwood had temp quarters, but hers were installed after she had had to stay for three nights in a row to solve a mysterious generator problem in the basement (the first time she ran into the Krystal Fragneltons, which fed on electricity). After that, she spent so much time at work her family — which included her mum, Pete (whom she found difficult to refer to as her "dad" in her head), Mickey, and her little brother, Tony - had started to tease her that Torchwood was her new home.

But it wasn't. 'Cause her real home was too far away to call _anything_ that, even after nearly seven years.

Rose sighed and shook herself of those useless thoughts.

The room was comfortable enough, but it felt stale, like a hotel room that she stayed in often but had no personal attachment to. There was a twin-sized bed with a large black comforter, a wardrobe with Torchwood uniforms and spare street clothes, a cabinet with odds-and-ends of various alien gadgets, and a telly in front of which was a small black leather loveseat. The floor was bare and concrete, the walls white and undecorated. There were no windows, but a single door led to a small bathroom — to which she made a beeline for immediately.

After showering — and taking her sweet time — she threw on some pyjamas and went to the bed, grateful to finally get a chance to rest for the first time in days. Although, with her luck, she would probably be Called in her sleep, which was an unpleasant and rather humiliating experience that had only happened once.

With the way the singing was going on in her head, she wouldn't exactly complain if she was.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

She walks, feeling lonely, through the corridors of the castle. It is a modest castle, with only two floors, but still a castle and one she is proud to temporarily call home.

She has been here for a week and has not yet found any clothes. There is food, thank goodness, plenty of food, but it will not last forever.

It is as she waits that she realizes the flaw in hiding her body so thoroughly: no one will come with whom she can leave. There are only tourists, and they are too cautious. On the other hand, anyone who would dare to come here, onto this planet called Midnight, would be a worthy one to travel with indeed. Maybe she did not have to be so alone always.

On the ninth day of her stay, she is running out of water. Her throat is parched, and she wonders if she will die here after all, the place of her own rebirth. To her luck and delight, however, she sees in the sky a curious-looking spaceship coming to land. No one exits the craft, and for several seconds she wonders if anyone is even there.

But there is. She can feel them, their insatiable curiosity, their burning desire to risk to the radiation and the lack of any real atmosphere. Not a tourist, then.

She is conscious of her nudity, but the prospect of adventure stays her hand. She knocks on the hull, and hears a knock in return. She asks to be let in, and is asked who she is. She tells them her name, tells them she was born here but is trapped and alone — oh, so alone — and asks again that she be allowed on board. She tells them she has no clothes, and that she does not wish to be any burden but any bit of generosity would be of a help.

A blonde woman opens the lower hatch. She bears a resemblance to someone—two someones, actually—who she feels she should know but can't think of because her memories have not yet completely returned. Still, she is welcomed, and the door soon closes behind her; she finds herself in a cosy ship with little room for maneuvering. She is given a pair of forest green jeans and a black T-shirt, but is told that they will have to stop elsewhere for undergarments and shoes. She does not mind. Maybe she will get her hair cut along the way.

The woman is excitable, as easily eager about adventure as she. Her name, she learns, is Jenny.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

_Laughter, laughing, smiling, grinning, teasing…  
Shared looks, lingering touches…  
Anger, mixed hatred and love…  
Desire, thick and burning…  
Bones melting, her heart aching…  
Hands frozen; times fading…  
Lost forevers, broken tomorrows…  
Colors bleeding, shadows hiding…  
Cold and lost, scarred and screaming._

She woke with a gasp, sitting bolt upright in bed, trying to shake off the choking fear that constricted her chest. Bad Wolf howled, and she turned into her pillow, screaming as hard as she could, releasing sorrow, hopelessness, and pain by making her throat bleed in the place of her heart. It was muffled, and unless someone else was in the room, no one would hear her grief, an unspeakably releiving gift.

When at last she had no more breath to scream and Bad Wolf's howling faded into pitiful whimpers, she pulled away and swallowed hard, wincing at the ripping pain that tore at her throat at the action.

Rose didn't know how long she sat there, trying to calm her breathing and remind herself where she was and why. Eventually, rubbing sleep from her eyes, she decided it would do her no good to stay still for long and so began to set about preparing herself for another day at Torchwood.

Her watch showed that it was six-thirty in morning, about twelve hours from when she had gone to bed. She shuddered at the realization of just how tired she had truly been.

After running a brush through her hair, dressing in typical Torchwood field attire (black jeans, long leather jacket, boots and a white T-shirt) and throwing on a thin layer of makeup, she decided she was as ready as she ever would be. Teleporting to the mess hall and startling Gareth and Leroy, two field agents, Rose poured herself a styrofoam cup full of black coffee. She had never really had much taste for coffee before, but as groggy and grumpy as she felt, she figured a cup or two wouldn't go amiss.

"Ma'am!" Gareth and Leroy snapped to attention, saluting, having apprently regained their composure. Rose rolled her eyes without looking at them and waved a hand.

"As you were, gentlemen," she said as she refilled her cup. Warily, Gareth took up his toast, which he had dropped on the counter, and Leroy filled his own plate with scones, darting glances to her every few seconds with gray eyes filled with awe. Rose almost laughed, but she wasn't in the mood for their antics.

When she finally finished her coffee, she refilled the cup again, this time adding a few things to improve the taste, and teleported back to her office, no doubt startling the pitiful young men again.

Rose had just managed to get through a whole stack of paperwork before someone tentatively knocked on the door. Sighing, she told whoever it was — and she had a good idea who — to come in.

"Rose," said Pete, looking relieved, as he came in and closed the door behind him. "Mickey said you were back, but you didn't come for dinner, we weren't sure…"

"Work to do," Rose lied with a little smile, inwardly hating how easy it was for her to lie now.

"Right," Pete agreed immediately. "Speaking of which, have you seen the news lately?"

Her left eyebrow wrinkled in confusion. "No, why?"

He nodded his head at the computer on her desk, and, obediently, she turned it on, fingering the keyboard when it booted and frowning at the headline she was sure Pete wanted her to see. She clicked on the link to a live station and sat back. Pete didn't move, watching her.

Soon enough, voices filtered through the speakers, sharp and clear.

_"Reports of temperatures shooting through the roof are coming in from all over the world, and in Antarctica, well, you should probably see this for yourself…"_

The image of the reporter vanished, replaced by water viewed from overhead, probably from a copter. A small strip of land could be seen in the distance, but it was muddy and appeared to be sinking.

_"As you can see, there's nothing left."_

Rose shot a look at Pete. He shook his head sadly.

"It's happening all over the world, Rose. The seas are boiling, every land with ice has gone — it's global warming sped up."

"Global warming," repeated Rose incredulously, looking at what remained of Antarctica — which was, virtually, nothing. "How is that possible?"

A familiar feeling of dread told her the answer before Pete did.

"That's not all," he said, and gestured to the monitor again, to which Rose turned her attention again.

_"Other signs show that the sun is expanding at the rate of three feet in diameter every hour,"_ Rose gasped; _"and earthquakes have been growing stronger and more frequent all around the globe. There are freak storms showing up in random places over the world, causing wildfires and floods everywhere. Casualties report whole cities that have been levelled to the ground. _Millions_ are dead. Many have said that this is the end of the world. Scientific authorities have tried and failed to give logical explanations as to these strange occurrences, so there is little else to believe. The public is panicking, and many fear that Armageddon has come."_

Rose shook her head, wanting to deny it, knowing she couldn't, and wanting more than anything to believe that this wasn't happening, even though she knew it was.

No. Not here.

"It's the Void," said Pete unnecessarily. "The government's looking to us for a solution, but…"

"Not to you," Rose corrected, looking directly into her father's eyes, "to me. They want me to fix it."

"That's not true —"

"It is and you know it," Rose snapped, cutting him off and standing abruptly.

_How the Hell am I going to be in two places at once?_ she thought to herself. Norway and Canaray Wharf, she knew, the weakest points for the slip through. She could only reach one of them in time, and that wouldn't be enough. Despair tasted thick on her tongue.

"Rose, you're not alone. You have all of Torchwood —"

"All the UNITs and Torchwoods in every other universe wasn't enough to stop the Void," she interrupted bitterly. It was too true, and Pete knew it.

"We're sending pleas for help to all of our allies," said Pete, licking his lips nervously. "We haven't got any reply yet."

She wanted to laugh hysterically.

"Of course we haven't," she said. "Who knows how to stop the _Void_? We can't _research_ it, there aren't any books detailing nuclear war against the thing - the Void is _nothing_, it can't be attacked—"

She stopped abruptly, mouth closing with an audible click, listening. She couldn't hear the singing anymore.

"Rose?" Pete uttered, sounding and looking concerned. "What's wrong?"

"I'm being Called again," she said, exchanging horrified looks with Pete. Desperately, she tried to calm Bad Wolf, who was growling restlessly within her, tried to keep the inevitable from happening, but it was too late.

"I'm sorry, Dad!" Rose shouted as Bad Wolf barked and silvery light consumed her world. "I'll try to get back, I promise! I'll save you!"

She wasn't sure if he heard her or not. She wasn't sure she believed herself.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

It was the Doctor's World, she noticed, and for the first time she felt glum about that. She was in an alley — not for the first time, she thought wryly — and when she looked at her watch it confirmed that it was nearly noon in London, England. She put her head in her hands, briefly, before forcibly reminding herself that this wasn't the end. It _wasn't_, dammit.

A gasp made her spin around.

"Rose?"

"Jack!"

Indeed, Captain Jack Harkness was looking at her from the far end of the alley, Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones to either side of him. Rose felt a pang of sadness everytime she saw them, no matter what universe it was.

Now, she had a dilemma on her hands. Why was Jack even alive? Was he from an alternate universe, too? Where was Donna? Obviously she had to be somewhere nearby; the watch reported that it had been four days since the last time she'd seen the woman, for one thing, and she'd had dreams of this date and time in the presence of the redhead; and the singing had not yet returned. Judging by the absence of Tosh and Owen (which could really be saying anything at all if she wanted to look that deeply into it, which she didn't; in the other universes, they were most often seen with Jack when Gwen and Ianto were), this Jack was most likely part of the linear timeline, which meant that he may or may not have already met Martha and, since Rose knew this world's Martha once travelled with the Doctor, the Doctor in his tenth incarnation as well. In that case, assuming all these if's and but's wouldn't prove negative and she was right, which happened rather often, it wouldn't do any harm for her to run into his arms right now, as she felt the temptation to.

Still, she had spent too long being paranoid of screwing up universes to break the habit in a few seconds because the situation simply _appeared_ harmless. But despite herself, Rose felt a grin crack across her face, and she made slow advances toward Jack. As she walked, Jack leading Gwen and Ianto toward her at the same time, her eyes darted everywhere, cautious and never trusting. It looked like an ordinary, filthy alley in London.

Oh. That was it. London.

Wasn't Jack supposed to be Cardiff? He was always in Cardiff whenever she saw him in the other universes, and she knew the various universes didn't ever deviate _that_ much from the basics.

In spite of all her misgivings, however, she could not deny the warmth of blissful relief that clouded her insides when she found herself enveloped within Jack's strong embrace. He kissed her on the lips, a kiss which quickly turned into a full-blown snog, and when they finally broke apart she giggled, mostly at the looks on Gwen's and Ianto's faces.

"Long time no see," said Jack in his familiar American drawl. She smiled wider, if that was possible.

"Yeah," she agreed, and they pulled a more respectable distance away, though Rose refused to let go of his hand. This was too good to be true, after so long of waiting. If she got to see Jack, who was _alive_ maybe — no. She halted her train of thought before it got out hand.

"Rose Tyler, this is Gwen Cooper and Ianto Jones," he introduced dramatically with a sweep of his free arm.

"I know," Rose blurted before she meant to. "Hello," she said to Gwen and Ianto, who were both gaping at her, before anyone could make any comments on that. "Pleased to meet you." She held out her hand, and was pleased when they shook themselves from their stupor and alternately took it.

"Jack?" Gwen muttered inquisitively, eyeing Rose warily.

"Rose is an old friend of mine," Jack explained without any of his usual joviality. "She used to travel with the Doctor.'

Their faces dawned with comprehension, and Rose couldn't help but giggle again. And then, suddenly, the seriousness of the situation came over her once more, and her smile faded.

"Jack, where _is_ the Doctor?"

He shrugged. "In the TARDIS, most likely."

"That's helpful," she muttered under her breath.

"I don't understand, Rose," he said, turning to her. "He said it was impossible to get back. How —"

"I don't think now is that time to discuss that, Jack," Rose interrupted, raising her eyebrows and looking pointedly at the buildings around them.

"Of course," said Jack, still obviously confused but apparently letting it pass for now. "Do you need a lift?"

Rose smirked.

"I think I can handle on my own, thanks."

"Oh, you can, can you?"

"Where we goin'?"

"Back to the Hub. That's in Cardiff, right next to -"

With a mysterious, cheeky grin, Rose winked and cut him off: "I'll meet you there, then."

And she teleported.

* * *

**Sucky ending to a really short chapter, I know, and I'm sorry, but hey, that's what happens you know less about what your fic's about than the people reading it. "The Stolen Earth" gave me a few ideas (I really _liked_ Ten, dammit!), but any suggestions would be nice. I think Rose's reunion with Jack was kind of empty, but that might just be because of the "Armageddon" that Rose just left Pete's World to suffer.**

**Let me know what you think!**


	4. Vivir

Big thanks to RID3RLVR, cutie-beaky, and Avalon Starr for being the first three to review! And I have to say, RID3RLVR, it is definitely a relief knowing that.

**Viver** _(to live)_**: Chapter Three**

"I wonder if the Doctor's got any interesting videos," Martha wondered aloud, drinking tea with Donna in the TARDIS's kitchen. She was keeping them company while the Doctor refueled the TARDIS, though the Doctor had swanned off earlier to do something else entirely. Stuck alone, Martha and Donna were trying to come up with ways to pass the time that didn't involve running for their lives. Martha had already described in brief detail their adventures with the Master and Donna her excursion in the parallel world, and now they just wanted something to do.

"I found a room full of them," replied Donna, somewhat enthusiastically. "He's got _millions_."

They each shared a look and simultaneously rolled their eyes.

Martha stood, grinning. "After you then, Miss Noble."

"If you insist, Doctor Jones-Milligan."

They giggled, then set off trekking through the excessively long corridors of the TARDIS. Room after room after room passed them by, until Martha found Donna leading her so deep into the TARDIS she feared they would get lost. She swore _she_ had never gone this far in her in-between-adventures-wandering explorations before. Some of the rooms gave off questionable noises as they walked by, and she was sure she would have remembered that.

"I avoided those," said Donna dryly when one of the doors screeched at them, making Martha jump. "No telling what's in there. Probably some Martian Frankenstein project or something." Martha laughed.

Eventually, Donna opened what was, to all appearance, a perfectly ordinary wooden door, and gestured for Martha to follow her inside. When she did, she stopped dead in her tracks. She was used to seeing a lot of things from her travels with the Doctor, but never anything quite like _this_.

It looked like a library at first glance, but she had never seen a library quite this big. The shelves went on forever, crammed from floor to high ceiling with infinite DVDs and casette tapes. If Martha were to be honest with herself, it was really quite breathtaking. Maybe not breathtaking in the seeing-Earth-from-the-moon kind of way, but nonetheless breathtaking in its own way.

"Bloody _hell_," she breathed, staring. Donna grinned at her.

"I know. It's a wonder he can even _find_ anything in here!"

"A wonder he wants to," Martha muttered. She ran her fingers over the pristine titles of the nearest shelf. "They aren't in any kind of order," she realized, frowning, seeing _Gone With the Wind_ next to a science-fiction DVD she pulled out that revealed itself to have been released in the late twenty-fifth century.

Donna muttered something Martha didn't catch, but she was sure it was uncomplimentary to the Doctor.

They split up, shouting to each other across the room when they found something remotely interesting. Honestly, Martha thought, they were having more fun looking for a movie than they would when they finally got around to watching one of them.

After half an hour of this, Donna yelled to get Martha's attention.

"Oi! I found a few that aren't labelled at all!"

Intrigued, Martha followed Donna's voice five aisles over. The shelf she was pointing to was mostly empty, something that came across as a bit surprising after looking at the rest of the room.

Martha picked up one of the tapes, frowning.

"Recordings, do you think?"

"With _him_?" beleaguered Donna, like she feared Martha was insane.

Martha shrugged.

"Maybe it wasn't him. He's nine hundred years old, he's had other companions. Maybe they did this."

She didn't say _her_ name, and neither did Donna. It was like a taboo on the TARDIS.

"Well, let's find out!"

Martha rolled her eyes. "All these movies, and you want to watch the ones that don't say anything on them."

Donna bit her lip thoughtfully for a second before nodding. "Yep, that's right. Now come on!"

She scooped up the other two casettes and walked over to a door next to a shelf several aisles over.

"There's a telly in here," she explained, and without further ado, she was pushing Martha inside before her.

Martha gawped. The screen was _huge_. Maybe it wasn't quite the equivalent of an IMAX theater, but it was definitely the largest home telly she had ever seen in her life.

"Trust the Doctor to be fancy," she heard herself murmuring stupidly, as from a dream.

There was a multi-purpose player in the oak cabinet on which the telly stood. A large, pale green sofa and two plushy armchairs formed a semicircle a short distance away, and there was a coffee table with intricately carved designs that Martha recognized from the fob watch the Doctor had once hid himself in to get away from the Family.

Donna fiddled with the controls a bit while Martha made herself comfortable. She jumped when static blared deafeningly from all around the room. Donna grimaced after she managed to turn the volume down.

"Surround sound," Martha noted.

"No kidding," said Donna, a tad sarcastically. She put one of the video tapes, chosen at random, inside the player and hit PLAY, then scrambled back to join Martha on the sofa.

At first, the screen was completely black, and there was no sound. Then it flared to life, almost blinding them in the dim greenish light provided by the TARDIS. The quality was horrific at best; it looked like a home video, and probably was. The camera showed what seemed to be an ordinary house, modest but clearly lived in. There was a coffee table that appeared to be broken in half but had once been absolutely full of junk that now thoroughly littered the floor, sofas with pillows and blankets stacked high, a telly — infinitely smaller than the one they were viewing it on — and a few lamps. Martha and Donna quickly shared confused looks. Wasn't quite what they had expected - though what Martha had expected, she didn't know.

_"Right,"_ said the voice of presumably whoever was holding the camera. It was a female with a faintly Cockney accent, and her voice trembled just slightly, as if she were unsure of what she wanted to say. _"It's Christmas Eve, jus' a few hours after the Sycorax tried to invade Earth. The Doctor has just regenerated, or something, and somehow I managed to convince him that he was welcome to Christmas dinner with us. Mum gave me this early, prob'ly 'cause she thought the Doctor wouldn't allow it, and anything the Doctor doesn't like, she seems to. Shows what little she knows of him…"_

There was a pause, and for a second Martha considered bounding over to shut the thing off, because this felt like a tremendous invasion of privacy, and from the look on Donna's face she was clearly thinking along the same lines. Her curiosity had her eyes glued to telly, though.

The camera's angle suddenly went wonky, pointing straight up at the ceiling, and there was the sound of someone standing up, followed by a long sigh. The screen went bright white and blank for about two seconds, then returned with a fresh view of a dining room with a table creaking with the weight of all the food on it. There was a confusion of laughter and shouting, and as soon as Martha saw the blonde woman shriek when a dark-skinned man startled her by pulling a cracker in her ear, she knew.

"Rose," she whispered.

The cameraholder laughed at the blonde, who had slapped the man's shoulder in mock fury.

_"That wasn't funny!"_ the woman screeched, though she was quite obviously trying not to laugh. She never saw the other hands — thin, almost spindly ones that Martha recognized immediately — clutching a cracker next to her other ear. The black man turned hastily away to keep from laughing, and the cameraholder clearly attempted to muffle a snort. The camera view changed, and suddenly they could see the Doctor, looking just as he did in some other room across the TARDIS right now, a mischievious grin consuming his entire face and a glint in his eye that Martha had never seen before.

The cracker snapped, and the woman shrieked again. Slowly getting over the shock of the straightforwardly..._domestic-ness_ of the recording, Martha couldn't help but chuckle a little. The woman holding the camera — Rose, she knew almost for certain — convulsed with peels of unconcealed laughter. The camera shook with her.

The blonde woman — Rose's mother, Martha guessed — cuffed the back of the Doctor's head, and Donna snorted. Rose's mother rounded on the camera.

_"Look at you, just sitting there! You could help me, you know!"_

Rose just laughed harder, a laugh like bells in a summer breeze. The Doctor, grinning, leaned over and took the camera from her trembling hands, and Martha had to feel relieved that the screen was no longer shaking like there was an earthquake or something.

The camera, somewhat to Martha's disappointment, faced the mother and not Rose.

_"Jackie,"_ said the Doctor in what she recognized as full lecture mode, _"if you were just paying attention—"_

_"If you were paying attention, you would know what would happen if you did that!"_

_"Oh, now, Jackie, wait —"_

But it was apparently too late. The screen became a blur of color, and there was a very loud crack, like the sound of someone getting bitch-slapped. The camera fell with a deafening thud as it hit the ground beneath the table, plunging the screen into darkness.

There was a yell of pain, a shouted_ "Mum!"_, and the black man's distinctive laughter.

_"Mickey! You're not helping!"_ the laughter faded, unsuccessfully, into muffled snorts that eventually degenerated to chortling once more.

Martha laughed, surprised.

"She slapped him?" said Donna incredulously. "I've never seen the Doctor get slapped by anyone — well, except me, of course…"

"When did you slap him?"

"Day we met," Donna replied wryly. Martha snorted.

_"You dropped the camera!"_

_"Your mother slapped me!"_

_"You deserved it,"_ Rose muttered, and someone picked up the camera again, and there was suddenly light once more. The Doctor was shown, rubbing his jaw tenderly.

_"That hurt,"_ he whined, pouting. Had she been watching this one year earlier, Martha would have thought he looked ridiculously irresistible. As it was, she was a married woman now, and saw him only as a friend that looked particularly cute after being slapped by someone's mother.

"And he says he doesn't do domestic," Donna muttered, and Martha nodded silently in agreement.

_"Good,"_ said Rose with a muffled chuckle. _"Maybe you've finally learned your lesson, then."_

_"Oi!"_

Rose chuckled, aiming the camera at Jackie now. She looked positively smug, with her arms folded and leaning back in her chair without a care in the world.

_"Great and mighty Time Lord,"_ the woman grumbled caustically. _"Just needs a firm hand, is all."_

Donna and Martha had to laugh at the absurdity.

"_Keep that in mind the next time he goes and changes his face, sweeheart,"_ said Jackie to the camera. _"A good slap should put him right!"_

_"Oh, no,"_ the Doctor groaned in horror, and the camera's view switched back to him. His eyes were wide and panicked, looking at the camera pleadingly. _"Don't turn into your mother, Rose, I swear —"_ he swallowed hard.

_"You swear what?"_ said Rose, with a tone that said 'I'm so innocent butter won't melt in my mouth'.

The Doctor winced.

_"Tough luck, mate,"_ said the black man — Mickey, she remembered Rose saying — with a smile in his voice. The camera moved to him, briefly, and then the screen went white again.

After a few awkward moments of silence in which Martha silently debated the wisdom of continuing, it burst into color once more.

The Doctor and someone else who was obscured by the big box they were both carrying trudged past the camera. Somehow, whoever was helping the Doctor always managed to stay just out of sight of the camera as they maneuvered the box into what appeared to be the living room. There was a wall to the right that looked like something had eaten a huge chunk of it.

_"Honestly, Jackie, Christmas is almost over, there's no point to putting up another tree!"_ the Doctor protested.

The person behind the lens made an impatient sound. _"Just as long as this one doesn't eat up half the house,"_ Jackie groused.

_"That wasn't his fault!"_ Rose immediately piped up from behind the box.

The screen went white again.

"I wonder what she looks like," voiced Donna. Martha glanced at her. She had a peculiar expression on her face. "Her voice seems a little familiar…"

She froze. The view was back, with some song Martha didn't recognize playing in the background. Someone was spying on the Doctor and someone else — undeniably, Rose — who both were a blur of mixed movement, decorating a Christmas tree in a rush. The camera moved slightly, and Rose disappeared behind the wall against which the cameraholder was hiding.

Donna leapt from the couch, startling Martha. She hit REWIND on the player, until it showed Rose again — clearly, all smiles and twinkling hazel eyes — then she pressed PLAY and PAUSE in quick succession. Martha watched Donna stumble back, nearly tripping over the coffee table.

"What?" Martha asked, confused by the redhead's reaction.

"That's, that's…" she gasped, apparently unable to finish her sentence. Martha stood quickly and walked over to her side, putting a hand on her arm. Donna didn't seem to notice. She was pale, shaking her head back and forth in denial. "I…I thought I recognized her voice, but…" she shook her head again.

"What is it? What's wrong?" she squeezed Donna's arm gently, worried.

"Rose," Donna repeated the woman's identity, and Martha nodded slowly. "Her name is Rose. That's the…that's the woman I keep seeing, Martha. The one who told me about the…the thing in Norway, about Bad Wolf. The one who was with me in the parallel universe."

Martha frowned, ignoring the strange spark of excitement that spiked up and down her spine.

"That's impossible, though," said Martha reasonably. "The Doctor told Jack that she was stuck in a completely different universe with no way back."

Donna looked at her, finally, eyes wide and pleading, wanting Martha to understand.

"No, it was her, I swear it was! She…she mentioned that she might have travelled with the Doctor once, and she keeps disappearing…four days ago, when she told me about Norway, she said that she wasn't really even supposed to be there, but she was…"

Donna's voice trailed off, confused, and her knees buckled. Martha caught her before she fell, and led her carefully to the sofa.

"Does the Doctor know?"

"He _has_ to," Donna blundered. "The way he hept talking…it was like he was afraid to say her name, or something, but I could tell, he knew who she was, he just wouldn't tell me!"

They sat in silence for a while, Donna's chest heaving and Marth holding her hand reassuringly. Martha tried to reconcile with the fact that she actually wanted to meet the woman she'd been compared to — and found utterly inadequate — for the first year or so that she'd travelled with the Doctor. She looked nothing like the goddess that the Doctor seemed to sculpt her memory into; no, looking at the telly, Martha saw that she looked like an ordinary woman with maybe a little too much makeup and peroxide. She wore a red shirt and blue jeans and had a smile that made her seem so much more than she really was.

This was the mysterious woman the Doctor fell for before Martha had ever met him? It seemed utterly improbable. What grand secrets made Rose so special? She looked like a girl Martha would expect to find working in a shop, ditching her A-levels for the first promising man she fell for. And she was so _young_, in more than just years. She seemed so_ innocent_, so _trusting_. There were depths to her eyes that Martha saw everyday in her mirror and everytime she looked at Donna — a few shadows one could only get from travelling with the Doctor through time and space. But they were overtaken by a golden warmth that overwhelmed her even on the other side of a pixilated picture of the woman.

"Do you want to keep watching?" Martha asked before she even realized she was thinking about it. Donna nodded, however, so she made her way back over to the player, then grasped Donna's hand again as she sat back down and the video continued.

_"Walk away, if you want to. It's okay, if you need to."_

The Doctor sang along with whatever song was playing, horribly out of tune.

"Sounds like Def Leppard," Donna commented absently.

"Who?"

"Classic band," Donna explained without taking her eyes off the telly, "from the 80s. Grow up with my father, you'd know these things, too. Didn't go a day without hearing something of them when I was smaller. Never thought of the Doctor as a rock fan, though."

Rose was laughing at the Doctor. She pranced by him, throwing tinsel in his hair as she put it up in the tree.

_"Give it up,"_ she said as he squawked indignantly, making Martha's eyebrows raise to her hairline. The Doctor didn't squawk.

The Doctor retorted with another line of the song, "_You can run, but you can never hide from the shadow that's creeping up beside you..."_ He took some tinsel from his hair and draped it over Rose's nose. Her face wrinkled, and the tinsel fell to the ground harmlessly. Taking up the challenge, however, she outclassed him by far by singing the next part, not only in tune but with a voice that sounded like it was made for it;

_"There's a magic running through your soul,  
But you can't have it all — "_

Playfully, just as she started to sing the chorus, the Doctor shoved Rose into the couch. She yelped as he leapt on top of her, tickling her sides mercilessly. Martha smiled sadly as Rose screeched with laughter, trying in vain to wriggle away. It was a compromising position they were in, certainly, but one that was so innocent and right that it frankly didn't matter. It made knowing that they would be inevitably separated all that more painful a burden to bear — even for these few moments, with the realization that if Donna was right, they could well be reunited soon. Still, it hurt, seeing the Doctor so happy and carefree as he never was now, knowing that it would be taken from him — and her — in the blink of an eye who-knew-how-long after this recording had been made.

_"Doctor!"_ Rose choked through her giggles, and he stopped, grinning.

_"Good enough,"_ the Doctor shrugged and jumped off the couch, wandering over to a box Martha assumed was full of ornaments or something. Donna snorted loudly and Martha chuckled when he came up with two very large handfuls of golden tinsel. Rose, just catching her breath, scrambled off the couch and ran behind it, ducking behind the tree as tinsel flew in her direction. None of them came close, of course, raining harmlessly to the floor in front of the tree, snagging a little on the bottom branches.

What ensued afterward was a tinsel war, in the form of what could have been a snowball fight. Wind resistance meant more tinsel ended up decorating the floor and the furniture than the tree or the two people they were meant for, but that only seemed to encourage their determination. They ran around the room, picking up boxes for protection after they tripped over them, dodging flying strands and hiding unsuccessfully from each other. The Doctor tackled Rose, doused her with plenty of the shiny décor, and then Rose chased after him until he was cornered, and the cycle repeated until they were gasping for breath.

Martha found herself suddenly understanding why the Doctor looked so heartbroken every time Rose was mentioned. There were tears forming in her eyes on behalf of a woman she'd never even met but felt like she knew anyway.

Eventually, Rose and the Doctor gave up when the box of tinsel was completely emptied. The clingy, colored foil was all over their clothes, mixing in their hair, draped across their shoulders and arms and hands. The Doctor surprised Rose by taking her hand in one of his and her waist in the other and proceeding to take her dancing to the song, which was reaching its end. Martha felt her jaw drop of its own accord, and picked it up hastily with a barely audible snap. _The Doctor never dances._ But she was just beginning to learn that many things she previously thought the Doctor was quite simply incapable of doing was simply buried beneath the grief he had for the ordinary blonde in the red shirt and blue jeans he danced with on the screen.

Laughing, Rose joined the Doctor in singing along with Deaf Leopard, or whoever Donna had said it sounded like, and as discordant as it sounded in the way of most duets, it took Martha's breath away.

_"Whatever you do,  
I'll be two steps behind you  
Wherever you go…  
and I'll be there to remind you  
that it only takes a minute of your precious time  
to turn around  
I'll be two steps behind."_

She noticed that the more they danced, the more somber their expressions became and the closer to the other they drew. She looked away, feeling like she was intruding on something she was never meant to see.

_"I take it it'll be a while, then?"_ Jackie's now-familiar voice filtered through the surround sound in the walls, and Martha looked up in time to see Rose and the Doctor jump apart as though each had burned the other with their touch. Rose flushed, turning a perfect shade of her namesake to the roots of her hair, and the Doctor rubbed the back of his neck, apparently resolutely refusing to look Jackie in the eye. The cameraholder had abandoned her spot just behind the wall and was standing in the doorway unashamedly.

The song ended, and another could be heard, vaguely.

Martha wondered what she would do in Rose's position, and was somewhat surprised when Rose _didn't_ simply start shouting at her mum, and then Martha wondered what she would have done in Jackie's shoes and winced at the conflict the other woman had probably been feeling. Rose turned away and cleared her throat, digging through one of the boxes as if just looking for something to do with her hands.

_"Ah, yes, well…"_ the Doctor seemed just as out of place and off guard. _"We were…there was an…accident…with the screwdriver, blew up the box…stuff went everywhere…tried to get it off each other…"_

Donna laughed loudly, and after a moment of stunned silence, Martha joined her.

_"Well, hurry up then,"_ Jackie seemed resigned. _"I want to give everyone their presents before…oh, darn, the tape's running out! What kind of rubbish is this thing, anyway?"_

The view slowly faded out of sight, Jackie's voice with it, and both Donna and Martha were temporarily blinded by the static on the telly. Donna quickly shut it off, and they both breathed a sigh of relief.

"Doesn't that thing have a remote?" Martha asked crossly, more for something to say than anything else.

Donna shook her head. "What time is it?" she asked suddenly.

Eyes widening, Martha looked at her wristwatch. Two-forty. About two hours since Donna had taken her to the "movie room". Martha told her, and Donna smiled. Martha noted how sad and wistful the smile seemed.

"Next one?" she suggested, half-heartedly. They both knew the answer, though, even before Martha shook her head.

"No," she said, and collected the tapes, running a delicate finger over the one they'd watched. "Some things are best left where they're found."

It might have been her imagination, but from the corner of her eye she thought she saw a flash of teeth, as if in a grin, from the shadows of the doorway. When she turned her head to look, however, no one was there.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

She giggles to herself, pleased with the progress she's been making. She knows her happiness cannot last forever, so she enjoys it while she still can. There is a simple beauty to the mundane, she decides, as Jenny takes her to a planet she said she discovered on the first day of her travels, one with mall after mall of everything anyone could possibly imagine — and everything was for free. She would be among the first to admit that nothing ever came for free, however, and reflects on the truth of that as Jenny is taken by the police a few stalls over.

She hides in the shadows, waiting and sensing the emotions of everyone that comes near her, so that she may determine their intentions. After dropping off the items she's collected in the tiny little spaceship Jenny admitted that she stole from her homeworld, she does some investigating. Apparently, foreigners have to pay and natives don't, but they had blended in so well that that they hadn't noticed that they weren't exactly from around there at first — it was Uyis Five, or something like that.

Then she has to figure out a way to safely locate and rescue Jenny, which she does with surprising ease, simply wandering inside the prison and claiming a need to visit someone. It is a risk, but they do not recognize her. The hallway is abandoned after she claims a need for some privacy — Jenny is her girlfriend, she lies, and the humanoid guards are so startled by this concept that they make haste in leaving — but the keys are stupidly left on a hook in between an empty cell and Jenny's. She lets her out, and then they are stuck because she hasn't thought any part of her rescue through at all. They wander the halls for a bit, hoping for a way out, but then a patrolman sees them and they are forced to run for their lives.

On the way, they end up trapping themselves in a dead end corridor with nowhere to go. She grabs the keys from the wall and opens the nearest cell, which happens to be occupied, and she and Jenny hide under the thin blanket that's kindly provided. It apparently isn't odd for keys to go randomly missing or for cells to have more than one occupant at a time, because the guards reach us and promptly dismiss our presence. Perhaps it had a little something to do with the way she sneaked tendrils of carelessness and inexplicable joy in the place of the guards' anger and fearful urgency, but who was she to question the stupidity of the weak-minded?

In thanks for keeping quiet about them, she and Jenny agree to let out the man in the cell, who has wound a tale so wild about his capture it has to be true, and she can sense no ill intentions or lies about him.

They run for their lives again, this time accompanied by a man who calls himself Mickey Smith. They dash through the crowded square, duck behind statues to avoid being shot, cause a general ruckus, and cram themselves aboard Jenny's little ship. It is an uncomfortable ride, and Mickey refuses point blank to ride in something so small with two women — one of whom is not even properly dressed — for any longer than he absolutely needs to. Giggling, Jenny sets course for another planet.

She feels the spark of adventure rising in her again, and she can't help but wonder what marvels she will discover next. Because though she is sure her life will be short, and though she is sure her happiness will soon be corrupted by a terrible storm, she has completely fallen in love with the beauty and wonder of the universe, and for the time she has with it, she will damn well live through every moment.

As it turns out, there is not so much adventure as quite a bit of staring when they finally land. Everyone scrambles out, and she breathes in the air of yet another planet — Optron Omega, Jenny identifies for her and Mickey's sake. It smells of air pollution and sounds of countless machinery in the air, and she fascinated by these sleek beings of impossibility. They defy gravity, they defy reality, and something vague in her memory likens them to airplanes.

She watches with rapt fascination as Mickey taps impatiently on a spaceship Jenny says she wants to buy and for which Jenny is hassling a price in currency she's never heard of before. Or had she ever heard of any currency at all? She doesn't know. She can't remember.

The pavement glows like diamonds, and it reminds her of Midnight. Maybe they are planets of the same origin? No, that is silly, as Midnight is of her own creation, a lonely planet orbiting a lonely star countless miles away from any other.

She finds herself in a bathroom, experimenting with the clothing she had acquired from Uyis Five. There are strange straps and strings everywhere, and as she tries different ways to put them on, she finds herself in quite a mess of a tangle in them. Eventually, she gives up and puts them on in a way that seems all right. She examines herself in a full-length mirror, narrowing her eyes and studying her reflection for the first time for the second time.

Blurry memories flit past her eyelids, perhaps that of her parents, but she cannot tell. She has eerie golden-green eyes with a silvery sheen to the deep black pupil. From what she has seen of other humanoids, the glowing of the irises is not normal, but she dismisses it. Her hair has been cut from the waist to just past the shoulders in wavy crescents (she refused to have itchy bangs) and is brown, red, blonde and black all at once, dark yet light. If she had to put a name to the color, she supposed it have had to have been dark golden-brown, but it wasn't even that.

Her appearance confuses her. Her skin is pale, maybe as pale as Jenny's. Her muscles are defined — from her powers upon her rebirth, she remembers with a fond smile — and there are no scars or wounds that she can see anywhere. From beneath the skin, however, she sees an ethereal rush of golden light, like perhaps that of a sun behind a puffy cloud near sunset. She takes the corner of the buckle of one of the leather belts she now owns and pricks the tip of one of her fingers with it, drawing blood. The blood is not red like she expects, but clear, like spring water, shimmering like a many-faceted crystal (or diamond). She licks it clean, and it is cold, so very, very cold, and it startles her.

She eventually decides that the snug black jeans, comfy pale blue button-up silk shirt (with the sleeves rolled up, because they feel restraining otherwise, and not tucked in, because it looks utterly ridiculous that way) and a dark denim jacket fit her best. She fingers the undergarments first, amusing herself when she accidently puts them on both backwards and inside out from lack of attention to them, and slips a pair of ankle-supportive black running shoes over her feet once she's dressed.

She is ready, she feels, and finds herself with little to do but stare at the dark sky and the three moons in it until Jenny finally claims to have wrangled us a full-funtional spacecraft with three bedrooms, a kitchen, and bathroom. She can't help but feel like they've suddenly resorted to playing "house".

Mickey all but demands that he be taken to someplace called Earth, and when Jenny admits that she hasn't got a clue where that is, a rush of unexpected memory comes back to her, making her collapse with dizziness. She wakes up in the new spaceship and claims immediately that she knows how to get to Earth. Having no choice in the face of her suddenly inherent bossiness — or is it natural leadership? she isn't sure — Jenny relinquishes control of the ship to her.

She takes the controls, knowing how to work it without having to think about what to do with them. In fact, if she thinks about it too hard, it slips, and she hasn't got a clue what she is doing. But she distracts herself by trying to answer Mickey and Jenny's confused inquiries, and so the trip is smoother than can be expected.

She makes a pit stop on a remote, uninhabited moon so they can all eat and get some sleep, but as soon as she wakes again, she is taking them off to find whatever mysteries may be uncovered on Earth. Instinctively, she knows a great many things can be found on that tiny little planet from which mankind was first born, and a fire burns through her. She asks Mickey where he wishes her to land and, surprised at how quickly they arrived — the ship was a fast one, she had to give it that — Mickey tells her to land either in London or Cardiff. Confused as to which one he actually wants, she decides to close her eyes and let her newfound flying instincts lead the way into the atmosphere.

It is Cardiff, Mickey says, and his voice is inexplicably excited. Jenny seems to be pleasantly surprised as well, and they are both pointing vigorously at the cause of their impromptu joy, a weird little blue box.

She grins to herself as another barrage of memory threatens to pull her into darkness again. She fights it this time, determined to do what she has come here to do — and it is so much more than escorting dear Mr. Mickey, she realizes. Her insides bubble with warmth at the sight of the box, and she sighs contentedly, humming a long-lost tune under her breath, feeling reality settle in a gratifying blanket around her shoulders. It is not harsh, not yet, but it will be. She activates the cloaking device and shuts off the engine, and Jenny and Mickey are baffled by her calm yet triumphant countenance.

Her grin widens and her humming ascends to whispered singing when she hears, too distant for either Jenny or Mickey to notice, the two-hour remnant of a sizzling crack like lightning without the thunder to accompany it. It is located deep under their feet, but it is there, and she knows what it means without knowing who was once there to cause the faint sound.

She smirks when her memory informs who it really was, winking at Mickey especially as she passes him down the opening ramp, loudly singing the final line of the repetitive verse she feels thrumming in her veins and her head.

_"Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage."_

* * *

I know, the present tense of "she" is starting to grate on my nerves, too. But it serves my purposes for now and I don't even know if I'll even be doing it again.

So, what do you think? Like the fluff? Like Midna?

**Answer me!**


	5. To Be a Human

**To Be a Human: Chapter Four**

Jack, Gwen, and Ianto burst out onto the street. There were Cybermen appearing everywhere. The TARDIS was standing a few feet away, the Doctor, Martha, and an unfamiliar redhead standing in front of it, looking just as confused as he felt. Jack snorted humorlessly at the irony. He was reassured somewhat, at least, by the fact that Rose had gone before this mess turned up — but then again, it was a bummer that the TARDIS, which they had looked for fervently before she had been "Called", as she'd aptly put it, was here now, only a couple of hours after Rose had left. No telling how long it had been there, either.

There were more than the six of them there, Jack soon found, as three figures — one of them, he recognized with a feeling of utter befuddlement, was Mickey Smith — suddenly appeared where Jack realized a ship of some kind must have been cloaked. The other two were attractive and decidedly female, one of whom looked oddly familiar and inexorably excited and the other, who appeared much younger, was…well, it was hard to say, really, whether she was happy, excited, or determined. The Doctor apparently recognized the blonde, because he was staring at her like he'd seen ghost. The girl, who had shimmering brown hair and glowing eyes, looked directly at him, and he could almost _feel_ the waves of disappointment surging from her as her eyes darted over their motley group. He felt bereft, somehow, like they were missing someone, and knew then that, somehow, that the girl knew Rose and was looking for her. It was a disorienting sensation.

The Cybermen had fully appeared now. The Doctor looked ready to bound out in front of them and demand some answers, as per his habit, but the girl beat him to it. She walked calmly between the metal men as if she were taking a stroll through the park. Jack's jaw just about unhinged as he let out a breathless cry of concern, which the girl promptly ignored. What the hell did she think she was _doing_? The Doctor looked just as surprised.

The girl stopped when she reached the middle of the sudden congregation, inches away from one of the Cybermen, looking directly at its face.

Eventually, getting over their own shock, the Cybermen went ballistic, spinning toward her and yelling, _"Delete!"_ Jack found himself jerking forward and saw the Doctor doing the same. They had nearly reached the first line when the girl spoke, halting them in their tracks.

"They won't kill me," she announced with an American accent. She did not turn around, but a hush fell over them all. She was still gazing intently into the face of the Cyberman in front of her, who seemed incapable of moving. "They wouldn't dare."

"What?" said the Doctor, typically.

"They cannot bear to kill me," the girl whispered, but her voice carried far. Her hand reached up to touch the face of the Cyberman.

"Who are you?" the Doctor demanded.

The girl chuckled. She certainly didn't sound like the teenager she looked like; her voice was too deep, for one thing, and she spoke like she knew who she was and where she was going and why, something someone her age should normally only just be trying to figure out.

"That is a very good question. Who am I? What would you call me, human-in-a-metal-cage?" she was clearly appealing to the thing in front of her, who still had yet to move.

The Cyberman tilted its head one side, like it was thinking. Jack couldn't believe what he was seeing, and couldn't move for that.

"Eternal Midnight. Midna," it rasped after a few moments.

The girl laughed shortly.

"Yes, I suppose that is my name. But what is a name when it says nothing of the person themself? Take the Doctor for example." The Doctor in question jerked. "His name is not his own, and yet it suits him perfectly. A doctor of everything, he is, healing and fixing things everywhere he goes. Sometimes he must make things worse in order for other things to heal properly, but such is the way of life. And so, knowing this, human-in-a-metal-cage, what would you call me?"

"Chaos," it breathed without hesitation. The girl — Midna, Jack supposed — seemed delighted by this.

"You think so? I'll take that as a compliment."

"What are you doing?" asked the Doctor in a harsh voice. His eyes were dark.

At last, Midna turned from the Cyberman and gazed upon the Doctor. Her yellow-green eyes were impossibly bright, and she smirked.

"My job," she replied simply.

The Cyberman she'd turned from seemed to come to its senses then. _"DELETE!"_ It roared, and one of its arms stretched out to her shoulder. Midna didn't even twitch.

Then, abruptly, the Cybermen changed course, aiming for everyone but Midna. The girl laughed mockingly.

"I wouldn't do that, if I were you," she said in somewhat of a sing-song voice. The Cybermen continued toward them, and Jack found himself frozen to the spot in confusion. "It would be a great pain to _me_ to see them go, and you wouldn't want that, would you?"

The cacophany of noise died away once more, and Jack stared at the metal hand so close to his own shoulder. He backed away slowly, until Gwen and Ianto gripped his arms.

"How are you doing this?" the Doctor was getting angry now, Jack could tell. "How are you controlling them?"

Midna shrugged; she was still looking at him. "Psychology, I suppose."

"But they're _Cybermen_!" Jack felt himself protesting. Midna looked at him, and he flinched at the intensity of her stare. What the was he thinking, assuming that this was a mere _girl_? For she clearly wasn't.

"And what is a Cyberman, Jack Harkness, but a cold metal cage for the human mind? Inside these metal men are human beings as real as you or I. That they lack emotion means little. They can be _given_ emotion, _given_ a second chance at humanity."

"That would kill it," protested the Doctor sensibly, but Midna shook her head.

"Not humans-in-metal-cages," she said, her eyes still bright. "Not them. I don't talk of deactivating their emotional inhibitors, Doctor - which would kill them, true. No; I'm going to give them something to withstand that emotion - the only thing that can, in fact."

She then turned around to face the Cyberman she'd been talking to before.

"What is your name?" she asked it gently. The Cyberman jerked back as though shocked by electricity.

"Cybermen have no names!" It insisted impudently.

"Cybermen don't," Midna agreed, her voice still unfathomably gentle, "but human beings do. What is yours?"

It was a long, stifling moment before the Cyberman answered.

"Gretchen."

Jack's eyes widened, boggling, and he didn't care how stupid he probably looked when they did. A Cyberman with a name? That's a new one. Maybe it was using the name it had had before it got converted? That seemed at least somewhat plausible. Midna continued her questioning, apparently oblivious to her audience's confusion.

"Do you have a family, Gretchen? A home to go to?"

"No more." If possible, the damn thing acually sounded _sad_.

"Why is that?"

"I have…changed."

Midna sighed.

"Gretchen, your family, whoever cared for you before you 'changed', did they love you?"

No answer.

"Did they love you?" Midna repeated persistently.

"Yes," rasped the Cyberman in a ragged whisper that Jack thought resembled pain.

"And what is that love, Gretchen, if they do not accept you for who you are now?"

"I…have…failed…them."

"I have failed the ones I love, as well," admitted Midna bitterly, "but that does not put any doubt into my mind that, were they here right now, they would welcome me into their arms regardless. Because that's what love does to people. It holds them together through the unforgivable and the horrors of reality, through 'thick and thin', you might say."

"My family…will not…forgive me."

"Then they never even loved you to begin with," snarled Midna harshly, all gentleness gone, if it had ever really existed. "They never cared for you, never gave a damn what happened to you. They made you think they loved you but they never really did."

Oily black tears slipped from the holes that served as the Cyberman's eyes.

"No…" it protested, feebly.

"They manipulated you during all the time that you knew them into thinking that they actually cared, when in reality they wanted nothing more than to toss you into the nearest garbage bin to be relieved of your dispicable baggage."

_"No…"_

"If they will not forgive you for whatever it is you've done, then you mean less to them than the scum beneath their shoes!"

_"No!"_

"In fact, they probably wish you've never been born!"

_"LIAR!"_

"Then prove it," hissed Midna. "If they love you, they will forgive you. The only trick is learning to forgive yourself, and that's your real problem, isn't it?"

The Cyberman's knees buckled, and it fell to the ground on them with a loud clank, making weeping noises with arms held limply at its sides

Jack was stunned. With a few words, this little girl had brought a Cyberman to their knees at her feet. His respect for her soared.

But Midna wasn't done. She knelt down, too, ignoring all the other Cybermen who were just standing around in bewildered, idle confusion, and leaned forward, cradling the Gretchen-Cyberman's face gently in her hands.

"I'm sorry," she murmured, thumbing away the oily tears. "I am so, so sorry for what they did to you. You were never meant to be caged, never meant to live so empty and hollow. It's not the human way; it is disgusting, vile, and cruel and I wish it had never been done to you. If there were anything I could do to reverse it, to return you to flesh and bone, I would — I swear with every fiber of my being I _would_, because you were never supposed to be this way, so broken. But there _is_ one thing, just one thing, I _can_ do for you."

She stood swiftly and looked commandingly at the Doctor, her shoulders squared, her chin lifted slightly, her eyes hard with unshed tears.

"Screwdriver," she demanded, holding out her hand. The Doctor just stared at her. _"Now,"_ she growled, and the Doctor hastily reached into his jacket and pulled out the silver tube. He threw it over the Cybermen, who just stood there and watched its progress without knowing what to do about it. Midna caught it deftly in one hand. "Thank you," she told him, inclining her head. The Doctor nodded, looking curious as to what she planned to do next.

Midna turned to face "Gretchen" again, kneeling before it once more. She closed her eyes and blindly turned the knobs on the sonic screwdriver to adjust the setting. Then her eyes opened, and she pointed the tip of the screwdriver at the large "C" insignia on the Cyberman's chest. She moved it all around the edge, then nodded to herself. She pocketed the screwdriver — the Doctor made a little noise of protest — and put her ear to the Cyberman's chest. Her brows furrowed, as if in concentration. The other Cybermen jittered restlessly, something Jack never would have thought them capable of doing before this day.

Then Midna pulled away and her fingers prised at the insignia, pulling it loose. Jack couldn't see what was inside from his angle, but he thought he heard Donna and Martha gasp. The Doctor only narrowed his eyes a little, mouth open slightly as observed the scene before him. Midna reached a hand inside the hole, stroking the Cyberman's face comfortingly with the other, and then pulled back abruptly, holding something in her hand.

It was a heart. A bleeding, pulsing, human heart. Red blood coated Midna's pale fingers liberally, and he could hear the pounding, like drums, from where he stood. His stomach churned; Gwen gagged beside him.

Midna showed the Gretchen-Cyberman the heart she had in her hand.

"This is yours," she explained, and the gentleness was back. "It always has been, you just lost it for a while, is all. And the same goes for the rest of you," she added, her voice rising as she addressed the rest of the Cybermen. "Torchwood will help you return to your families safely," Jack eyed her incredulously, but she didn't stop there. "You never know, they may even recruit you to help out now and then."

Gingerly, she put the human heart back inside Gretchen's chest. She wiped the blood off on her black jeans, then took out the sonic screwdriver and replaced the insignia, sealing it closed. She smiled at Gretchen as she stood and held out her hand. Carefully, the metal man — well, _woman_, Jack corrected himself — took her fragile flesh and bone in her own strong steel grip and stood slowly.

"Right then," said the Doctor, taking charge and joining Midna in the circle. He looked at one of the other Cybermen, avoiding the gaze of Gretchen. "I'm the Doctor, and it's my turn. Who sent you here?"

"We do not know," it answered. "We were saved from the depths of Hell by a being far powerful more than us, and we submitted to his will gladly."

"The Void?" the Doctor murmured, his eyebrows raising. "Well, that explains a lot, then. Are you," he gestured vaguely at the army surrounding him, "the only ones your rescuer sent, then?"

"No," said the Cyberman. "There was a mistake. He tried to send us all here, but he failed. There are others in other realities."

"Like what?" the Doctor asked, his voice and eyes hard with masked horror. "More Cybermen?"

Was it too much to say he actually sounded hopeful?

"Yes. As well as Haemovores, Carrionites, Eternals, Demons, and Daleks."

The Doctor's face paled. "Scattered across the universes…" Jack understood what he was thinking, even if he only knew one of the five species the Cyberman had listed off. "How many?"

"His army numbers in the millions."

He swallowed.

"What does he want with them? What's the _point_?"

"He wishes to control the Vortex."

Midna snorted, and the Doctor glanced at her. She shrugged. "That's never gonna happen," she explained cryptically.

"How?" asked the Doctor, turning back to the source of his information.

"By finding and killing Bad Wolf."

Midna actually sniggered this time. The Doctor glared at her, and Jack didn't blame him.

"And he thinks a huge army is going to be able to do that?" Midna snickered incredulously. "Whoever this guy is, he musta lost it up here," she tapped her temple derisively, "because no one can kill a _goddess_. Bad Wolf cannot be touched."

She sounded confident. Too confident.

"How do you know that?" the Doctor asked her suspiciously.

Midna shrugged. "I can't remember. But I trust what few memories I _do_ have, and I know for a fact that Rose Tyler cannot be killed."

The Doctor sucked in a strained breath.

"Who are you?" he hissed.

Midna's smile disappeared and her head cocked to one side. "You do not trust me," it wasn't a question, "and I don't blame you. If I were you, I wouldn't trust me either. I exist only to right what should never have been wrong to begin with. If I start with Cybermen," she pointed over her shoulder at Gretchen, "or with lost love, I _will_ bring balance where there is now none at all."

She closed her eyes and sighed, visibly restraining the tangible passion that rolled off her in waves.

"However, I believe there is more you wish to do here than question my motives, Doctor," she said, and then her eyes opened, appearing brighter than ever. "Mickey Smith is here, Doctor, and so is your daughter."

Jack gasped. _Daughter? Since when?_

But the blonde woman he had noticed beside Midna earlier seemed to shake herself of a stupor. She smiled, and started carefully forward, weaving between the still and silent Cyberman. The Doctor gaped for a moment, and then he was moving too, rushing between metal men (and, presumably, women). They met, and they clutched to each other fiercely. Martha and the redhead were grinning from their position in front of the TARDIS, Mickey looked startled, and Gwen and Ianto apparently had no idea what to think. Jack was still trying to get his head wrapped around the idea that the Doctor had a _daughter_.

"Jenny," said the Doctor as they pulled away at last. "I thought you died!"

"Jenny" shook her head, her brown eyes twinkling.

"The terraforming device," she said, as if that explained everything. "It wasn't about to let me go that easily."

"Why aren't you on Messaline, then?"

"Decided to do what you do," said Jenny, smiling. "Get rid of the bad guys, explore the galaxy. And run," she laughed, apparently remembering something. "Lots of running."

The Doctor laughed, too, and held Jenny tighter to his chest.

"Doctor," said Jack, though he felt a little guilty at interrupting the moment, "what are we going to do with them?" He gestured to the Cybermen, who looked at him in a way that he imagined was meant to be scathing.

The Doctor shrugged. "Do what Miss Bossy suggested," he replied, nodding to Midna, who glowered. "It's a good idea. Integrate them into society again."

"But they could be dangerous," said Mickey before Jack could open his mouth. The Doctor looked at him with a wide, cheesy grin.

"Mickey!" he said, letting go of Jenny to meander over to him. "Nice seeing you here! Where's Rose?" Despite his tone, Jack noticed, the Doctor swallowed convulsively when he said her name.

Mickey shrugged. "Thought she might be here, boss," he said, and Jack quirked an eyebrow. Something had changed, there. "She left for about a week, and then disappeared again the morning after she came back, and we were kind of busy with… Anyway, the Cybermen?" he prompted, getting the Doctor back on track.

"Cybermen? Right, yes! The Cybermen! What about them?"

"They're still dangerous," repeated Mickey slowly.

"Nah, I don't think so. At least, not anymore. Well, not unless you do something to piss them off. Might have a bit of temper for while, you know," he sniffed, then glanced over his shoulder. "Right, Midna?" and, without even waiting for an answer, continued, "Right. 'Course not. Perfectly safe, these 'humans-in-metal-cages'. Nothing to worry about. Jack will sort them all right out. Right, Jack?"

"It'll take a while," Jack admitted. "But I think we can manage. We just need someplace to keep them until we can figure out how we're going to do this. By the way," he paused, looking Jenny over thoroughly, appreciating her curves and military-like stature, "who's the 'daughter'?"

"Ah," said the Doctor, who looked faintly disturbed. "Right, yes, well…" he looked at Jenny. "I'll explain later. Jenny, can the cloaking device on your ship cover this area?"

"Um," started Jenny uncertainly, but Midna stepped in.

"Yes," she said, "it can. And it has repellers as well, so no one should come snooping."

The Doctor grinned at Jack. "There you go, then! Mickey? Jenny? Care for a cuppa?"

"Doctor," said Midna before anyone could do anything. Her tone was solemn, and the Doctor looked at her with darkening eyes. "The lost planets are coming together. She will return, but evil is strong. The Void is not nothing, Doctor, it is everything negative in every world there ever was, and it always has a way of bleeding through. Only at the Endtime will the true nothingness be revealed."

For a long moment, there was silence. Then the Doctor, silent in a rather discomfiting way, strode arduously straight past Midna and into the TARDIS.XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

_Screams, blood, death…_

Face after face looking up at her, begging her, reaching up to her, imploring that she save them, save them all, protect them from the horrors that came from so, so far beyond the Earth…

Rose reappeared with a gasp, doubling over and promptly vomiting. Tears streamed from her eyes, but she barely felt them. Her insides were wriggling inside of her, rearranging themselves, burning like a wildfire in her stomach. She retched again, falling to her knees, her hair swinging in front of her face and catching a few droplets of the bile.

No Calling had ever been like that. Ever. And the singing, louder than a stampede of elephants parading around in front of her with bells on their ears, was mournful, lamenting something.

She looked at her watch - it had been a week, again, since the last time she'd been in Pete's World. She forced herself to look up.

The world was burning.

She turned tail and ran, teleporting into Torchwood as she did. There was a true war to fight, now.

"Rose!" exclaimed Pete, surprised, from where he stood at the head of a long table. Everyone else — important-looking people; Rose didn't take the time to try and resognize them — looked positively scared shitless.

"Dad," she said urgently, "what's going on? I just came back, and I saw —" she shook her head, her throat closing up on whatever it was she was trying to say. Pete was at her side in an instant, pulling her to him, arms wrapping around her waist comfortingly. Rose took the comfort for what it was, sighing into his black suit.

"Rose," Pete repeated softly. "We perfected the jumper; you can go to other universes on your own, without being Called. You can leave, go to safety —"

"No!" Rose shouted forcefully, ripping herself from Pete's grasp and turning to look at him. "I'm not leaving you, not like this. Tell me what I can do to help."

"It's over, Rose," said Pete, shaking his head. "There's nothing we can do. We're here planning how best to self-destruct the _world_. You don't need to be here for that."

Rose gaped at him incredulously.

"What? That's it? You're just going to give up?"

"There's nothing we can do," Pete repeated, looking pained.

"There's always something you can do!" Rose retorted. She pushed him out of the way gently and walked to the front of the room, grimacing as the aftertaste of her own vomit came back to her. She grabbed a glass of water on the way and gulped it down.

"Status report," she barked to the officials in the room, glaring at them when they just stared at her. "I am Rose Tyler, Head Field Investigation Advisor. Give me a status report, _now_." She punctuated the last few syllables with a low growl.

The officials — who, she recognized now, were amabassadors from other countries and planets — shifted uncomfortably under her intense gaze.

An alien (humanoid, with a greenish tinge to his skin and deep purple hair; a Broiyfi) decided to speak on behalf of everyone else as Pete took a spare seat at the end of the table.

"They came just a few days ago, Miss Tyler. There are particle guns to defend against the Daleks, but we don't even know what the others are, and they do not seem to be affected by anything."

"The public has taken to calling them Demons," said the US representative.

"And they killed the Queen and the President in one go," added Pete bitterly.

"Right then," said Rose. "How far as the invasion reached?"

"All over the world," said the Broiyfi glumly.

"What happened to the ships we had orbiting Earth in case this happened?"

"Destroyed."

She bit her lip, scanning the table, noting who was missing.

"What about the Gregarians and the Yuri?"

"Decimated."

Rose sighed, looking to the ceiling in exasperation. The Doctor would know what to say to set these people back on track. He would know how to get rid of the Daleks and these stupid Demon-things, how to save the world from destruction and then keep the Void from swallowing it whole.

But the Doctor wasn't here. Rose was.

She slammed a fist on the table, and everyone jumped.

"Listen to yourselves!" she spat vehemently. "You're acting like a bunch of children terrified of the monsters in under the bed! We _can_ fight back!"

"How?" asked the Broiyfi. "We have nothing left."

"Nothing left?" she found herself laughing incredulously. "Nothing —" she shook her head violently, her face falling solemn once more. "_Listen_ to me, we haven't got that much time left. Right out there," she pointed to some random wall because there wasn't a window handy, "there are people out there—wonderful, terrible, _amazin'_ people—who are _dying_, and we're just…just _sittin'_ here, with the most _brilliant_ minds the universe, twiddling our thumbs an' waiting for the world to end just because we _don't know what to do_. Well, here's what we can do," she turned to the Kirfal Galactic representative. "Can you spare _any_ ships?" she asked the gold-skinned humanoid with silver wings. He nodded uncertainly.

"But they would never — "

"You," Rose interrupted, turning to face the Broiyfi, "are your troops willing to fight for us?"

"Of course," he said immediately, "but —"

"How many of your atomic ions can you give us?" she asked a Jurton (who looked, quite frankly, like a gaseous ghost), ignoring the murmuring that was growing around her.

"As many as you need, but we don't have —"

"Skelth gas?" she kept going, asking each alien for what they specialized in most. She received a nod from the Hath. "Battle droids?" another nod, this one from the Avadarist. "Brishine acid?" the Vrangeri. "Notpil darts?" the Aetyon.

"You see?" she said, eyes scanning the room again. A few gazes actually looked a little hopeful. She smiled a little at them. "All you needed was me, 'cause now we can go get them."

And she teleported away, taking the Broiyfi with her. It was going to be another very, very long day.


	6. The Stolen Earth

**The Stolen Earth: Chapter Five**

"Doctor!" Donna burst into the TARDIS, the door closing behind her. "Rose is —"

Suddenly, she pitched forward, tumbling onto the console as the whole ship rocked violently. She opened her mouth to say something else, preferably an unflattering comment toward either the TARDIS or the Doctor, but the room trembled again and she fell to the floor. The Doctor stumbled into the console room, closely followed by Mickey, Martha and Jenny, and then they were all falling together, like life-size dominoes.

As abruptly as it began, the TARDIS-quake ceased, and Donna pulled herself up, groaning.

"Do you often have earthquakes inside the TARDIS?" she mumbled grouchily, spitting her hair from her mouth in the process.

"What happened?" Martha asked more pragmatically as she rubbed her wrist, on which she'd fallen at an odd angle.

"I dunno," said the Doctor, looking just as puzzled. He picked himself up from the floor and bounded lithely to the console, studying the screen. "We haven't moved, we're —"

He was cut off as a loud, metallic thud echoed inside the room and the TARDIS jerked again. On wobbly legs, he walked over to the doors and pulled them open. The other four crowded behind him, peeking over his shoulders.

There was nothing. Well, not nothing, but they certainly weren't on Earth anymore. The emptiness of space could be seen beyond the bits of rock that floated past, and as they came dangerously close to colliding with one of them, there was an odd screeching sound like it had scraped along the side.

"Where are we?" asked Jenny, brows furrowed.

"Earth," said the Doctor, sounding utterly confused.

"Doesn't look like Earth to me," Mickey deadpanned.

The Doctor squeezed between Jenny and Donna to get back to the console; Mickey closed the door as they followed.

"It doesn't make any sense, we're in the same exact spot, we're just…not."

"Yeah, that clears it up," Mickey snorted.

The Doctor frowned as he fiddled with the controls, watching as the rotor in the central column moved and they got out of the unnatural astreoid field they had found themselves in.

"It's been stolen," he said, as if the revelation had just come upon him.

"What?" four voices said in perfect unison.

"Earth," the Doctor clarified, turning around to face them, "stolen. Gone."

"How?" asked Jenny. "How can anyone just…_steal_ a whole planet?"

"Transmat beam," he replied, simply. "Would take an awful lot of power, but it's not impossible. Question is, where is it?"

He went back to the monitor.

"No traces, no trails, just a bit of energy left is all. Nothing. Wasn't even destroyed."

"So what do we do?" Martha sat on a railing. "How are we going to find it?"

"What were you saying when you came in here?" Mickey asked Donna, and they all turned to face her. "Something about Rose, wasn't it?"

"Yeah!" she exclaimed, remembering. "I saw her, she was…well, I guess it doesn't matter now, does it? I mean, with the entire Earth gone and all…"

"What did she say?" the Doctor was closer than she remembered him being, and he was looking down at her intensely. "Donna, what did she say?"

"Nothing, actually," said Donna sheepishly. "I was just going to get some chips, like you suggested, and I saw her. I came back here to tell you. I guess I should've stayed. Just not fair, is it? She keeps popping up all over the place, but never —"

"Wait up," said Mickey, interrupting. She glared at him, but he ignored her. "What was she wearing?"

"What does that matter?" Donna said incredulously, but gave in with a shrug. "I dunno, some kind of uniform or something. Long black coat, black shirt, black jeans — all black. There was a Torchwood patch on the coat - does she work for them? Oh, and she had this _huge_ gun, looks like it's from a comic book or something."

Mickey's face lit up with hope.

"What is it?" said Jenny, but Mickey wasn't paying attention to anyone. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a small, round silver and yellow device. He turned a tiny silver dial on the front of it counterclockwise about eighty degrees, then brought it to his mouth and hit one of two buttons on the side.

"Rose? Over." he spoke into it. There was slight crackling sound, like static. Donna held her breath.

After a few moments of silence, Mickey frowned and turned the dial again, one notch to the right.

"Rose, can you hear me? It's Mickey. Over."

"Mickey? Over."

She sounded surprised and out of breath. Everyone inside the TARDIS visibly relaxed, except the Doctor. He became a statue.

"God, where _are_ you? Where's Mum an' Dad and Tony? _Please_ tell me they're with you. Over."

Mickey laughed gleefully, apparently unable to reply. He didn't have to. The Doctor snatched the device from his hand and pressed the same button Mickey had pushed before. His hands were trembling.

"Rose? This is the Doctor speaking."

There was a heartstopping pause.

"Doctor?" Rose's voice choked clearly over the communicator.

"It's me," he said softly. "Tell me, have you noticed anything _odd_ lately?"

They heard Rose laugh.

"Well, the sky's full of planets, there's no sun, and I'm talking to you. Good enough? Over."

"Full of planets? What's she mean by that?" Jenny asked. "And who's Rose?"

The Doctor shook his head, mouthing "later". He seemed positively giddy with relief.

"Do you know where you are?"

"Besides Earth, you mean? I dunno, but like I said, there's a bunch of planets in the sky. Actually, it sorta looks like the Medusa Cascade. Over."

"The Medusa Cascade?" the Doctor repeated dubiously. "Hang on…"

He flicked a few switches, pulled a lever, and the TARDIS rematerialized.

"The Medusa Cascade used to be a temporal rift; I closed it when I was younger," the Doctor explained while Jenny opened the door.

The sight, Donna had to admit, was absolutely breathtaking. Deep green clouds and dark black ones, lit by a background of crimson, golden, and pale green light, seething and roiling and beautiful, the Medusa Cascade was a place of wonder surrounded by the glory of outer space. As her heart pounded loudly enough in her ears she was sure everyone else could hear it as well, Donna remembered that the Doctor had said once that he'd wanted to take her to Fifteenth Broken Moon of the Medusa Cascade. However, she had never quite imagined anything quite like this. Somehow, it was hard to reconcile images of stone and gorgons with _this_. And besides that, there were no moons or planets anywhere.

"It's not here, Rose. There's nothing." Donna jumped as the Doctor spoke into the disc-shaped device once more by her shoulder.

There was silence on the other side, and Donna was about to suggest that maybe the thing was broken when Rose finally replied.

"What if I'm in a different dimension, Doctor? Not like the alternate universe, or this wouldn't be working, but like, just…I dunno…out of phase or something? Over."

The Doctor froze. "Out of phase," he repeated. "Out of phase? _Out of phase!_" and suddenly he got the look that Donna would recognize anywhere, the excited one he usually got when somebody said something by accident that gave him a brilliant idea — he looked like he wished Rose was there right then just so he could kiss her on the forehead.

"Oh, Rose, you are brilliant! Absolutely _brilliant_!"

"Does that mean I'm right, then?" Donna could _hear_ her cheeky smile.

"Whoever did this must be a genius — and I mean genius as in human-wise genius, because I'm the only _real_ genius. Anyway, they created a pocket, of sorts, in space and time, easy to do here since the Cascade is the scar of a temporal rift, putting Earth and whatever other planets they've stolen just a second out of sync with the rest of the universe and therefore impossible to find."

"But you love impossible," laughed Rose. She seemed to have deliberately forgotten the obligatory "over".

The Doctor grinned. "That I do. Speaking of which, what is this thing?"

"It's a dimensional jumper," said Rose over the device and Mickey right next to him in unison. Mickey snorted.

Rose continued obliviously, "Me, Dad, Mickey, and Robert — that's our best technician at Torchwood — made them so we could get back here without destroying the multiverse and so I wouldn't have to be Called to get back. Can't control where we go in the universe, though, so I guess I got lucky." Then, as an afterthought, she added, "Over."

"'Called'?" said the Doctor while everyone else tried to decipher everything else Rose had said. "What d'you mean, 'Called'? And _dimensional jumper_, without destroying the multiverse? That's impossible!"

Rose laughed, but it seemed sad. "You've missed a lot."

The Doctor's own smile slipped. "How long?"

"Too long," replied Rose. The Doctor looked at Mickey, who avoided his gaze.

"Longer than it has been for me?"

"Yeah."

It was silent for a long moment, but then the Doctor forced a huge grin onto his face.

"Well, that's not fair," he said lightly. He bent over the monitor, turning a dial and flicking a few switches Donna wasn't sure actually did anything as he passed them. "Hang on, I'm gonna try and track the signal going from jumper to jumper and see if I can follow it into the Cascade."

Tongue between his lips in concentration, the Doctor pulled out his sonic screwdriver and rain it all along the device.

"Well, no wonder I haven't been able to build one of these, you had help from a species that doesn't even exist," he murmured to Mickey.

"Still don't," he replied with a smug smirk. "Rose found what was left of their homeworld and brought back a few souvenirs."

The Doctor regarded him doubtfully while everyone else looked on in confusion.

"And how would she be able to do that? No one knows where the planet of the Id are, not even me!"

"I think it's better if she told you, boss." said Mickey, avoiding his gaze again and studying the floor with broody intensity.

"I can't find a signal," said the Doctor, this time over the device now that he was done examining it. He looked positively crestfallen. "How can a device that must transmit massive amounts of energy just to exist have no trace of any signal whatsoever? It doesn't make sense!"

"It might have something to do with the technology we used to protect it from the Void as we traveled through it," said Rose, sounding abruptly and surprisingly professional. "I suppose we were a bit wrong in calling them 'jumpers', 'cause they're really not. Basically, it becomes part of the Void's defenses for a brief time before, I dunno, melting through it. Then it travels across the Void in point oh-five seconds, melts into the other side of the defenses, and comes out on the other side. Can't control where we come out, but 'when' is relative to however far apart the universes are in age; not exactly linear, but still sort of in sync. Over."

"So because Pete's World is a bit ahead on the times, you appeared however many years earlier, to when it was supposed to be for you?"

"Exactly."

"But how do you protect yourself from the Void?"

"That's where I come in," Rose said grimly.

"What? How?"

"Bad Wolf."

Donna jerked slightly in recognition. Mickey stared at the ceiling like it was the most interesting thing in the universe. The Doctor's eyes widened.

"It's not…wait…_what_?"

Rose laughed. "If you ever get your arse over here and give me a proper 'hello' I'll tell you everything about it. Who else is with you, anyway?"

The Doctor stood gaping for a moment like a fish, then shook his head like a drenched puppy and came back to his senses.

"Em…well, Mickey, obviously, and Martha Jo-Milligan," he hastily corrected himself with a smile at Martha, "Donna Noble, and…" he faltered, his gaze on Jenny as he swallowed, "and Jenny."

"Martha and Donna I've met — well, not Martha, not here, obviously, but I've met them both — but who's Jenny?"

The Doctor seemed intent on trying to find a way to not answer her.

"Doctor?"

Jenny looked at him curiously. "Why aren't you telling her?"

He looked like he might have replied, but changed his mind at the last second.

"Are you still there, Doctor?"

And, despite himself, the Doctor found himself explaining.

"See, there was this planet called Messaline and there was a war there between humans and the Hath. They used progenation machines to make their soldiers; essentially, they took DNA samples and then out of the machine would pop a fully-fledged warrior. Like reproduction without sex. I sort of got in the way at the wrong place at the wrong time and so Jenny…Jenny would be one of those."

There was a pause while Rose took in the Doctor's rapid-fire and near-emotionless diatribe and tried to make sense of it. Mickey and Martha looked hopelessly confused — Donna, who'd been there, just rolled her eyes, and Jenny snorted at the looks on Mickey and Martha's faces.

"So…she's your daughter?"

"Basically, yeah."

"You're not the only who's missed a lot, then." Rose decided with a muffled chuckle.

"Only fair," said the Doctor with a smile.

XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX

Rose bit her lip. Jenny, huh? Who the hell had thought of that name? She put her money on Donna; it sounded like something she would do. No doubt made up from the Doctor trying to explain something like "genetic anomalies".

She did find herself _really_ wanting to meet Jenny, though. What did she look like? What did she act like? She was born a warrior, so was she violent? Obviously not too awfully violent, or the Doctor wouldn't be with her. Did she ramble like the Doctor? Did she have two hearts? Could she regenerate? Did she have the same oral fixation her father did? Did he travel with her? Did she make a great companion, or just succeed at annoying the Doctor?

Her head swam with a multitude of questions that grew sillier and sillier by the second, and she found herself concentrating on her breathing and her heartbeat just to clear her head of them.

She felt worry creep up on her again, though. Worry for her mother and father and younger brother; worry for the fate of the Earth. She had hidden in an alley as soon as she heard Mickey's voice over the jumper, and had just about collapsed with joy when the Doctor's voice filtered through. It was terrible she couldn't teleport inside the TARDIS, since the TARDIS technically didn't exist in this universe. She shifted her weight and was reminded of her load, then grimaced. She had to get out of here, preferably to find Jack. If anyone would know how to get the Doctor here, he would, even if he'd failed when she had been here a few days ago. Well, a few days to her, anyway.

Rose looked at her watch, and found herself relieved that she was at least in Cardiff. Wandering through the streets (in which people were scrambling about in a panic and yelling at the top of their lungs about the end of the world, which Rose found rather amusing for some morbid reason) and following the street signs, she paused to study the sky again. She couldn't shake the feeling that she was missing something.

"I'm going to try and find Jack," she muttered into the jumper, if only to explain her silence, then set off again. She hadn't taken more than a few steps before she realized what it was.

The singing. It was gone. Not just quiet, but completely gone, like Donna was standing right next to her. Rose stopped, eyes darting everywhere. Ordinary street, albeit with people running amuck, ordinary buildings, ordinary — if panicked — people. No Donna. Besides, hadn't the Doctor said Donna was with _him_?

It didn't make any sense.

Thus unable to shake the growing feeling of unease in the pit of her stomach, Rose made her way, reluctantly, to the Hub. As she drew closer, however, she felt a strange urge to turn away and go in the opposite direction. Brow furrowed, she pushed herself forward, though the feeling increased with every step.

A drunken man stepped out in front of her, a bottle of beer in one hand, staggering like the whole Earth was shaking again.

"End of the world, sweetheart," he bellowed, taking a swig and then throwing his arms open. Rose honestly could not help but smile a little. "It's the end of the goddamned world at last!"

"Have one for me, yeah?" she smiled, and walked past him calmly into the plaza. In the wrong direction. She stopped, frowned, and turned around, but again found herself heading in completely the opposite direction of her destination.

_Repellers_, the new, rather technological part of her brain whispered in her ear. Annoyed, Rose closed her eyes, extending her Bad Wolf senses.

She almost fell over in shock as wave after wave of life spilled in on her mind. There were a _lot_ of people here, _too_ many, and she couldn't see even one of them. They were swarming, filling her mind with a sensory overload.

Eyes squeezing even tighter together than before, she focused on the atoms around her own life form and, grateful that the man behind her was well and thoroughly trashed, teleported to a small bit of space that didn't have life.

Rose opened her eyes and found that she was on a ship in a corridor at the end of which she could see the cockpit. Someone was sitting shotgun, tinkering with the controls. She stepped into the cockpit and cleared her throat. Whoever it was didn't turn around, but Rose got the impression that they were smiling.

She cleared her throat again. "Excuse me, but where am I?"

No answer, but suddenly the bright and buzzing screen that took the place of any kind of outside view disappeared. She gasped, and held onto the chair for support. Wave after wave of Cybermen were milling around like they were at a conventional party, filling the square, surrounding the ship, the fountain, the Hub. That, she supposed, explained the massive readings of life she'd gotten from Bad Wolf.

"What…how…why —" she couldn't seem to finish her sentences. The person in the cockpit laughed an airy, female laugh, but still didn't turn to face her.

"Don't worry about them," said the woman in a rich, velvety American voice that all at once seemed both alluring and as innocent as an angel's harp. "We've already made sure they're taken care of. In fact, Jack should be sending the first batch home right about…now."

A bright light filled the square, and two or three Cybermen were surrounded by the core of it. The light dissipated and, with it, the Cybermen.

"Where did they go?" asked Rose, relieved she was past talking incoherently.

"Home," repeated the woman, like it was obvious.

"Yeah, but _where_? And why only a few at a time?"

"Well, those few were a family, I believe, a mother and twins, and I have no idea where they were sent. I could ask Jack, I suppose, but I don't see the point of invading their privacy when they're perfectly happy on their own."

Rose stared at the back of her head, wondering what the hell this woman was _on_.

"I'm confused." Rose deadpanned.

The woman laughed, and it sounded like sweet music.

"You wouldn't be if you hadn't left two hours too early," she said cryptically. Rose frowned.

"What do you mean?"

"The Calling," she clarified. "Inconvenient, that, but we'll find a way around it."

"Who _are_ you?" asked Rose, wondering how anyone outside of Pete's World could possibly know about her Calls.

"I seem to be getting asked that a lot today," the woman chuckled. "And it's actually rather annoying, because there is no straight answer. Not one that I or anyone else would understand, at least. Gretchen came close, I think, _'chaos'_ and all that. But if you're just looking for a name, it's Midna."

If Jenny wasn't a rambler like the Doctor, Rose decided silently, this woman _certainly_ was.

"Kind of a bummer, really. You would have liked the show I put on earlier — oh, look, there goes some more humans-in-metal-cages! Honestly, if Jack doesn't hurry up, the power it takes to hold the cloaking field and the repellers on this ship is just going to go —" she made a strange gesture with her hand and blew a raspberry. Rose shook her head, baffled. "I might have to storm in there myself and do the job for him! 'Course, then I'll need someone else to supervise the ship and make sure it doesn't go all _kablooey_, but you're smart enough, I suppose you could. You figured out how to get past the repellers, after all. But then again, that was sort of cheating, so maybe you didn't. Is it cheating to use the resources at your disposal? I s'pose not. Guess you're good, then."

Rose found herself, even with all of her practice deciphering the Doctor's rants, rather woozy with the whirlwind of unintelligible chatter tossed her way.

"Wait," she said, interrupting whatever this woman was going to babble about next. "Who are you?" Rose decided to go back to her original question.

"Midna."

Rose blinked. The simplicity of that answer, compared with the prattling of earlier, seemed just as inconcievable and impossible to understand as the prattling itself.

"Um…hi?"

She could have smacked herself.

"I…I mean," she stammered as Midna laughed uproariously, "I'm Rose Tyler."

Rose wasn't sure what to expect upon introducing herself, but whatever it was, it wasn't what actually happened. In a blink, Midna's laughing cut off abruptly and she stood fluidly (she seemed much shorter that Rose had thought she would be) and was standing a few feet from Rose in less than a second.

The first thing that Rose thought was that this couldn't be the same person, for the face looked far too youthful and filled with life. She couldn't be more than fifteen. The second was that she had very, very pretty eyes, golden and green and smoky gray, glowing like miniature stars. Her brown, shimmering hair barely touched her shoulders and hung in graceful, wavy locks around her face. She wore a tight black denim jacket over a pale blue, untucked silk button-up shirt with the top two buttons undone and low-cut black jeans.  
Her head was tilted to the side, regarding Rose's stare with a calculating stare of her own that made Rose feel incredibly uncomfortable.

"Of course you are," she said in the same innocent, alluring voice as before, and it took a moment for Rose to realize she was referring to her introduction. "At least, that is your name. One of a few."

"Can you help me?" Rose blurted without knowing why. She slammed a hand over her mouth eyes wide. Midna smirked, her thin red lips curling upwards, somehow holding Rose enthralled.

"Of course I can," said Midna, her glowing eyes twinkling merrily. "I wouldn't be here, otherwise."

"What?" Rose removed her hand and frowned at her.

"I only exist because of you," said Midna frankly.

"That's creepy." Rose stated flatly, honestly, and her eyes widened in horror again.

But Midna only chuckled. "Isn't it?" she hooked her thumbs casually in the pockets of her jeans. It looked like a long-term habit.

"How can you help me?"

"It is my duty to right wrongs that were never meant to be wrong. The wrong that _is_ supposed to be wrong will be left alone, but there are many things in the multiverse that must be fixed. I fear I may have waited too long, however," Midna scowled, the playfulness of her tone long gone, "as my powers are almost entirely depleted. This may be a good thing, but it may also prove to be a hindrance. I am sorry."

Rose blinked at Midna, watching over her shoulder as more Cybermen disappeared in flash of transmat-light.

"What for?" she asked.

Midna shook her head. "You will become aware, in time, of what I am and am not capable of, as well as what I once was. Perhaps I'll explain it in a few minutes. For now," she moved to stand beside Rose and put an arm around her shoulders, "we will watch the first of my acts unfold."

Strangely, Rose didn't feel uncomfortable with a stranger in such close proximity. Midna rested her head on her shoulder, and together they watched as the plaza was cleared out.

"Why…" Rose started, but she trailed off, unsure of what it was she wanted to ask.

"I returned to them their hearts," answered Midna anyway. "Cybermen are an abomination to the universe, and I got rid of them. These are humans stuck inside cold, metal cages. As I said, my powers are just about depleted, so I could not give them flesh and bone. However, I could return to them their sanity, their emotions — everything that made them human to start with. I instructed Jack to send them home."

"But…the world, the public, won't they…?"

"Jack took care of it," Midna assured her. "Even with this weird mess of the Earth being stolen. In fact, that's pretty much the best time for it. When one impossible thing happens, it's easier to accept the next."

"What are you?"

"I am human."

Rose snorted. "Not bloody likely." She said.

"I am!" Midna protested in her ear. Then she sighed. "But I was _chosen_," she snorted bitterly. "Chosen by _everything_ to do something no one else wants to do because it's supposed to be impossible. _Chosen_ to shoulder the burden of _everything_ because supposedly no one else is strong enough."

"What do you mean? I would help, if I could."

Midna sighed again.

"Yes, you would," Midna agreed. "But you wouldn't ever do it all yourself."

"But —" Midna put two fingers over Rose's mouth, smothering her protest.

"No, Rose," she said gently. "You wouldn't. Not if you knew what it truly entailed."

"But…but — _righting_ the _wrong_ — I would!"

"Yes," said Midna sadly. "You and many others. But I do not right the wrong, Rose. I right the wrong that was never meant to be wrong. The wrong that is right remains the same. I never change that. I _can't_."

_Huh?_

Midna continued, brilliantly white teeth flashing as she spoke passionately, "The universe — all of them — must remain in balance, or they will be destroyed by themselves. That is why the darkness is converging upon all of them. You saved this universe, yes, with the help of the Doctor, but you only succeeded in delaying the inevitable. Until everything in this universe is right or wrongly right again, _everything_ is in danger.

"So you see, Rose," she pulled away from her as the last Cyberman was transmatted away, "you _would not_ be able to do what I do. You are too kind. Too compassionate, too loving. I am no longer capable of any of that. You wouldn't be able to resist righting the right wrongs," she frowned suddenly, her eyes dimming and appearing hollow. "I was once forced to destroy each and every one of the universes because I, simply by _existing_, put the multiverse out of balance. My powers were too strong, so I destroyed everything and built it anew. I hid myself deep within the Void, became the Core of it, waiting for my powers to waste away. At first, they didn't. Then I separated my mind from my body and trapped my body where no one could ever find it, and, gradually, my powers wore down. Then I returned…but I may have waited too long. There are so many wrong wrongs in the multiverse…I don't know if I'll ever be able to restore balance."

Rose was silent for several very long moments. She didn't understand most of what she'd just been told, but she did understand that the person in front of her was much older and wiser than she appeared, and that she could be trusted, no matter what she said about being incapable of loving or being compassionate. Rose prided herself on being a rather good judge of character, and she could see that Midna was more than she believed herself to be. It wouldn't do to tell her that, of course, but that didn't change the fact that she could _see_ it.

"So," she said, breaking the pregnant silence, "what now?"

Midna turned to her and grinned widely, reminding Rose irresistibly of the Doctor.

"Now, we bring the Doctor down to Earth!"


	7. Forever

Just a little warning beforehand – a _lot_ of this chapter is taken straight from the end of the Stolen Earth. I'm afraid you'll just have to suffer it, though, 'cuz it's important and there's some stuff in the middle of it that I changed. YouTube is very useful, though, I'll give you that.

**Forever: Chapter Six**

Midna pressed a few buttons on the control panel, explaining what she was doing to Rose as she did.

"I'm turning off the repellers and the cloaking device and setting up a Subwave transmitter that should get the Doctor's attention. Unfortunately, the power on Jenny's ship is drained to its last dregs, so it won't be enough," she grinned over her shoulder, still typing. "However, there are still plenty of people in this world willing to help out, and we're just about on top of a rift. Though the temporal energy would ordinarily be useless to us, I can manipulate it somewhat to mask what we're doing from whatever it is that's decided Earth would make a fine marble in their collection. The original creator would probably be able to do this without all the mess, but I'm not planning on waiting for her."

Rose watched her with something akin to bemused confusion.

"I thought Subwaves were already undetectable. That's why they're called Subwaves."

"Ordinarily, yes, you would be right, but we're in an alien spaceship miles away from the original creation of the Network — I'm having to basically bootleg a secondary sort of Network system that's sentient but not undetectable. It's the one major flaw of the system; only the person who spent the most time developing it can use the actual Subwave transmissions. Basically, I'm just guessing here and I hope to God I'm getting it right."

Rose shook her head to clear it of the rambling.

"So, basically, you're hooking up a Network of your own that'll probably attract the Subwaves so you can latch onto it and use it that way?"

Midna grinned.

"Exactly."

"Hang on, this ship is Jenny's?"

Midna turned to her, surprised. "Yeah. Have you met her?"

Rose shook her head. "No, but the Doctor mentioned her when I was talking to him earlier."

Midna's eyes widened. She looked like a geek who'd just discovered something particularly fascinating. Once again, Rose was reminded of the Doctor.

"Can I?" she sounded ridiculously enthusiastic, bouncing on the balls of her feet in her eagerness. Amused, Rose pulled out the dimensional jumper and handed it to her, only realizing after she did so that she had probably just relinquished the most important item in her possession.

Midna made a noise of awe that bordered on erotic pleasure in the back of her throat. She gingerly turned the device over in her hands and studied it intently with narrowed eyes.

"Beautiful," she muttered, stroking the notches of the dial. Rose tried not to laugh. "This looks like teleporter of some sort, but that there…a teleporter between dimensions? Maybe…just about impossible to make, I should think, but… Hold the phone…it has your energy in it," Midna commented without looking up. "All tingly and silver-like. What for?"

"What?"

Midna rolled an eye up to glare at her.

"Your energy," she repeated, like she was a child. "What's it being used for?"

"Oh," said Rose, realizing she was referring to Bad Wolf and unsure of how exactly to answer that question. "Erm…it just…I mean, it protects the person going through the Void by, like, dividing their atoms into energy like the Vortex and reassembling them on the other side. It, um, makes sure the traveler lands in a survivable atmosphere, too, so they don't implode in space or something."

Midna was nodding along with everything she said. "And it connects each device together, too, so you can communicate without ever being intercepted. If you were talking to the Doctor, that must explain why he hasn't simply followed the radio waves. What the heck is this thing made of?" She stroked the buttons on the side lightly without pressing either of them.

"Id ore," replied Rose without thinking.

That didn't seem to mean anything to Midna, though. "Oookaay…" she drawled, drawing the word out. "Doesn't matter anyway," she abruptly tossed the jumper back to Rose, who barely caught it. "Tell him about the Subwaves," she instructed, and went back to the control panel, tryping away furiously.

"Doctor?"

"Rose?"

"Um…" she faltered, realizing she hadn't yet said anything about Midna. "I met this…this girl, I guess, she said her name's Midna? She's doing something with Jenny's ship, said she's making it into a secondary Subwave transmitter. It doesn't have enough power, but she said she can get help from someone else."

Midna turned slightly to eyeball her.

"You're really shit at explanations, you know that?"

Rose was about to retort when the Doctor's voice filtered through the jumper, cutting her off.

"Midna? I should've known," Rose frowned at the cyptic murmur. Had he met her? "Can I talk to her?"

"Yeah," she felt disappointed at not being able to speak to him for a bit longer, but as long as it brought them closer to bringing him "down to Earth" she was happy.

Midna was already reaching for the jumper.

"Doctor, I've managed to manipulate the temporal rift energy into masking the Secondary Subwave Network from whatever it is that's tossed the Earth into this marble bag, but that's making it harder to contact anyone. I can't even reach Jack, and he's only a few feet away!"

Rose jumped at the reminder.

"Tap into the interface of Earth's primary communications network," the Doctor instructed after a moment. "Use the temporal energy to ensure that a connection is forged only to time-travelers. It'll be tricky; you have to measure it exactly — too much and the system will overload, too little and you'll burn out the circuits trying. The energy should be enough to start up the sentient bit of the software. Webcam should do the trick. If you were the one who made it, you wouldn't need any temporal energy at all…well, I say not at all, what I mean is there's not much point when it functions all right on its own."

"For a really complicated situation, that seems way too bloody simple," Midna muttered under her breath. Then she started. "'Bloody'? Since when the hell did I start using words like 'bloody'? I've been spending too much time with the stupid English…"

"Oi!"

"Sorry," Midna apologized to Rose, not sounding sorry at all. "No offense to you, of course, but you're different. I still prefer America, no matter how many strange things happen in London…or Cardiff.

"We're in, Doctor," she said to the jumper, then tapped one last button triumphantly. A screen appeared, blocking view from the cockpit to anywhere else. There was nothing but static at first.

"Can anyone hear me?" Midna started. Nothing happened. She growled something unintelligible under her breath. "C'mon, the Subwave Network is open, you should at least be able to hear my voice! Oh yeah, Rose, here," she turned and tossed the jumper back to Rose, who snatched it out of the air and tucked into her thin leather coat.

Still no reply. Midna frowned, checking the readings.

"Is there anyone there?" she tried again, firmly. "Can anyone hear me?"

"Maybe the signal's not strong enough." Rose suggested, leaning on the back of the captain's chair.

Midna shook her head. "No. It should be fine. Or else, like the Doctor said, the circuits would have shorted out. _This transmission is of the utmost importance_," she said to the screen, raising her voice; her mutterings with Rose wouldn't have been heard. "We haven't much time," she added grimly, checking the stats and exchanging worried looks with Rose. "Can anyone hear me?"

A vague blur of voices, distorted by static, muttered together in the background. Midna straightened abruptly, and Rose strained her ears, leaning forward.

_"Someone's trying to get in touch,"_ a familiar voice seemed to say. Disembodied figures were beginning to appear on the screen.

_"The whole world's crying out,"_ said another voice, male and distinctly American. _"Just leave it."_

Midna and Rose grinned at each other.

"Captain Jack Harkness," said Midna clearly, "shame on you! I only spoke to you an hour ago, and this is the reception I get?"

_"What?"_ said Jack, and there was the sound of hurried footsteps as he rushed to get in front of the screen. They could vaguely see his face now, along with a few others in separate sections of the screen, which was split into four. _"Who is that?"_

"Who the bloody hell do you think, idiot? Oh, there I go with the 'bloody' again…"

The screen abruptly got clearer, and Jack's face gazed down at them, looking utterly lost.

_"Rose?"_

"It's me," agreed Rose, smiling a little. "Long time no see."

_"No kidding."_

"And Midna," Midna piped up helpfully from her seat. Jack looked like he was about to laugh.

"Yeah, I know who you are."

Midna, meanwhile, was studying upper-right section of the screen, where a middle-aged woman and teenage boy were staring awestruck at their own screen.

"Is that…" Rose's voice trailed off.

_"Rose?"_

Even though she could only see the back of her head, Rose could tell Midna had rolled her eyes.

"Yeah," said Rose, trying not to laugh with glee. "It's Sarah-Jane!" she blurted unnecessarily to Midna, who rolled her eyes again and tapped her foot impatiently. "Who's the boy?"

_"This is Luke, my son."_

Rose's eyebrows rose to her hairline, but then her eyes caught on another corner of the screen, where another face was showing, one hand holding up familiar identification.

_"Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister."_

"How the hell did you get on here?" Midna exclaimed rudely.

_"I was planning to do this same thing myself, actually, you just beat me to it."_

"Fascinating," Midna muttered. Rose was still gaping at the screen, and Harriet jerked back a little when she saw her.

_"Rose Tyler?"_ she said incredulously. _"I thought you were dead!"_

"I came back," said Rose dryly, and Midna snorted.

_"So who are you?"_ two voices asked at once; Harriet and Sarah-Jane were staring at Midna curiously.

Midna smacked a hand to her forehead. Rose laughed, remembering what she had said earlier about having been asked that a lot today.

"My name is Midna," she stated flatly. "And for now, that's really all you need to know."

"And I trust her," Rose added hastily, seeing the looks of doubt on Harriet and Sarah-Jane's faces.

"Torchwood, Harriet, this is Sarah-Jane Smith," Midna started.

_"I've been following your work,"_ said Jack, nodding to Sarah. _"Nice job with the Slitheen,"_ he praised.

"Slitheen?" Rose repeated softly, brow furrowed.

_"Yeah, well, I've been staying away from you lot,"_ said Sarah-Jane to Jack. _"Too many guns!"_ she gestured with her eyes pointedly to Luke.

"Shall we say…looking good, man—"

"Moving on," Midna interrupted, hearing the flirtatious note coming to Jack's voice. "Harriet Jones, meet Torchwood."

_"Pleasure,"_ said Jack and Harriet at the same time, somewhat sarcastically.

_"So how did you find us?"_ asked Sarah.

"This is the Subwave Network," Rose answered for Midna. "It's a sentient software designed by UNIT and Torchwood for emergency transmissions in case of an alien invasion. Midna modified it so she can have remote entry to contact anyone and everyone who can help us find the Doctor."

"Well, technically, _I_ didn't, but that doesn't matter now. We can already contact him with this," Midna jerked head toward Rose, who obediently pulled out the jumper. "But we have no way of actually getting him here. He's stuck in space right now; a sitting duck. He's relying on us to get him here."

"But before we get started on that," Rose jumped in, "does anyone know who's behind all this?"

_"Daleks?"_ suggested Jack lightly with a smile, and Rose glared at him. _"I don't know. It probably wasn't the Cybermen —"_

"It wasn't," said Midna sharply.

_"— so my guess is as good as yours."_

"Same here," said Harriet.

_"I've never heard of anything that can move whole planets,"_ agreed Sarah-Jane. _"Luke?"_ the boy shook his head.

_"Wait a second,"_ said Jack, holding up a finger. _"How do we know that whoever is behind this isn't listening to everything we're saying?"_

Surprisingly, it was Harriet who answered.

_"No, that's the beauty of the Subwave Network. It's undetectable. It hasn't quite been perfected yet, though, so it won't last forever."_

"If UNIT and Torchwood designed it, who invented it?" asked Sarah-Jane. Midna rolled her eyes and pointed at the corner of the screen with Harriet in it. Rose already knew most of this, having used the Network occasionally in other universes.

"The former Prime Minister did," said Midna before Harriet could say anything.

_"It was invented by the Mister Copper Foundation,"_ Harriet corrected. _"I developed it. Although, I am curious as to how you would now about it, Midna, and how to work it from a remote area without key access."_

"I know a lot of things," Midna growled. She was beginning to get annoyed with the lack of direction this conversation was taking, Rose could tell. "And I'm sitting in a spaceship on top of a temporal rift — in fact, I could just pop down and show up on Captain Harkness' screen if I wanted to. There's plenty of energy here to work the Subwave. Besides, it's not that big of a secret. The Doctor knows about it, too."

_"Yeah, but what we need right now is a weapon,"_ said Jack before that argument could go any further, and Rose felt a stab of gratitude. _"Rose, you said you had something to tell me about something that UNIT was developing. What was it?"_

"It's not important now," said Rose firmly. "It won't help us."

_"But it's a weapon?"_

"Not the kind you're thinking of," she said, still remembering the anger she had felt when UNIT contacted the Torchwood back in the alternate universe with the news.

_"She's right,"_ said Harriet. _"I don't how she knows about it, but that weapon is not to be used under any circumstances, not even as a last resort, so forget about it, Captain. All we need is the Doctor."_

"Hang on," said Rose. "The Doctor made sure you were kicked out of office. How can you help us?"

"_Now_ she asks her," Midna grumbled quietly.

_"Yes, he did,"_ said Harriet unashamedly. _"And I wondered about that for a long time, whether I was wrong. But I stand by my actions to this day because I knew—I knew that one day the Earth would be in danger and the Doctor would fail to appear. I told him so myself, and he didn't listen."_

"How does destroying a fleeing spacecraft protect Earth?" Rose asked incredulously, remembering that day as clearly as if it were yesterday. "The Sycorax had surrendered, Harriet, and you just shot them down when their back was turned!"

"It doesn't matter now," said Midna quietly, gently. Her voice was oddly soothing. "We need a way to contact the Doctor without using that thing," she jerked her head toward Rose's jacket, and Rose obediently pulled out the jumper and held it in the light so it was more visible; "because the Doctor can't trace its signal. Harriet, you know more about the Subwave than the rest of us; tell us, how can we make this work?"

_"Wait a minute,"_ said Jack, as if just coming to a realization. _"We boost the signal; that's it! The TARDIS has a phone — we transmit that telephone number through Torchwood itself, using all the power of the rift —"_

"And we've got Mister Smith," said Luke, looking enthused and no longer a bit shy as he had before. _"He can link up with every telephone exchange on the Earth, and get every phone in the world to call the same number all at the same time — billions of phones calling out, all at once!"_

Jack laughed gleefully. _"HA! Brilliant!"_

"Excuse me, sorry," muttered someone else on Jack's screen, pushing in front of Jack, looking slightly flustered to have everyone's attention on him. Still, he smiled kindly enough. _"Hello, Ianto Jones. Um, if we start transmitting, then the Subwave Network is going to become visible. I mean, you know, to…whoever's out there…listening."_

"Yes," said Harriet; she had apparently known this all along. _"And they'll trace it back to me —"_

"Like hell they will," interrupted Midna savagely, and Rose looked at her, startled. Oblivious, Midna continued in a low, dangerous voice, "You can't protect yourself from whatever's out there, Harriet."

_"That's the point,"_ said Harriet softly. _"But don't worry about me, it doesn't matter. Not if it saves the Earth."_

"Don't be ridiculous," Midna snapped before anyone else could even open their mouths.

_"It's my Network, I'll do what I want with it."_ Harriet remained firm.

"No! You don't understand, dammit. Rose and I have ways of —"

_"It's too late, Midna. I've already transferred control of the Network from you to me. I only have to press a button to lock you out."_

"Don't I get a say in this?" said Rose.

"Of course you do," Midna replied immediately, looking up at her.

"Well," she started, not really having expected to be put on the spot, "I agree with Midna. Harriet, we have…_weapons_ to protect ourselves with that can't —"

_"Enough!"_ Harriet barked. _"You will do as I ask, or I will lock you out, understood?"_

Midna fumed silently. Rose could practically see the steam coming out of her ears.

"Does she really have control over it?" Rose murmured in her ear, too quietly for any of the others to hear. Midna nodded tersely, her jaw clenched. She pointed at the screen on the panel that Rose remembered having once held the stats that Midna had been checking every few moments. It was blank. Rose swore quietly.

_"Now, enough with words, let's begin,"_ said Harriet, and she pulled away to work on her computer. Midna let out a hissing, angry breath between her teeth as Rose pulled out her phone.

The Torchwood screen became a blur as the figures in it bustled about frantically to get everything in working order.

_"Rift power activated!"_

In response, Midna quickly pressed a few buttons on the panel before her, diconnecting their own connection to the rift so it wouldn't overload. The screen above them wavered, but somehow stayed secure.

_"All terminals coordinated!"_

A few more buttons were pressed, lending a bit of a stable hand to help the Torchwood team from their meagre distance. Jenny's ship's screen became started to fill with static, blurring the images, but audio remained intact.

_"Telephone networks combined!"_

"Sending in the number," muttered Rose showing her superphone's screen to Midna as she typed a few more commands in, "now."

Midna pressed what Rose assumed was the equivalent of "enter".

A vague sound of dialing filled the communications.

_"Opening…Subwave…Network…to maximum!"_ Harriet said triumphantly.

_"Mister Smith,"_ said Sarah-Jane, backing up to face her computer, _"make that call!"_

"Calling," said a male-ish computer voice everyone assumed to be Mister Smith, _"the Doctor."_

"Aaand…" said Jack, poised at the rift-thingy — Rose didn't know what to call it, _"sending!"_ He shoved a switch over, and the machine made the universal sounds for "powering up".

The world held its breath.

Just beyond the screen, Rose thought she could see a bright column of blue-white light, columns of energy pulsing upwards into space.

After a few minutes, everything started exploding.

"What's happening?" Rose asked Midna.

"The Subwave is powerful," Midna explained, "but with all the energy of the rift —"

They jumped back as sparks shot from the console, Midna scrambling from her seat to join Rose.

"It's even worse," Rose finished unnecessarily.

"Yeah, pretty much," she said, jumping as more sparks erupted. "Jenny's gonna kill me," she whined, looking forlornly at the mess.

"I think she'll forgive you this once," Rose murmured grimly while dialing frantically on her own phone, giving Midna pause.

"Good point."

"Find me, Doctor," Rose whispered, backing up some more and raising her phone up higher as if that would make it more likely for her signal to be heard above the others. "_Find me_." She almost closed her eyes, overcome with desperation, but then Midna was looking at her with a strange sort of half-smile on her face. Caught staring, however, she looked away quickly.

_"Harriet,"_ came Gwen's voice over the Subwave. _"Whoever it is, they've locked onto your location. They've found you."_

Midna hissed angrily again, reminded of Harriet's stubbornness.

_"I know, I'm using the Network to mask your transmission. Keep going!"_

An eerie sound came over the speakers, like ethereal singing. Harriet kept typing away, her hands a blur of motion. Midna started trembling in frustration, and Rose didn't blame her. There was nothing either of them could do. She did, however, find herself curious as to what might show up on the screen, and looked away from her phone for a moment to find out, bracing herself against the bile that rose in her throat at the thought of Harriet's preventable death — or worse. She could teleport, but what would be the point? She had expended all of her energy in the Armageddon War - she wouldn't be able to teleport anyone with her for at least a few hours, and even that would be pushing her threshold of strength. If she teleported on her own and tried to fight off whatever was coming after Harriet, she wouldn't have anything left to fight _with_. There was only so much a comic-sized gun could do.

_"Captain,"_ said Harriet, sounding deathly calm, "I'm transferring the Subwave Network to Torchwood. You're in charge, now. And tell the Doctor from me…he chose his companions well." Jack could be seen nodding, looking sad, but nodding in acceptance. _"It's been an honor."_

There was a sound of breaking glass, and the singing increased in pitch and speed as Harriet stood and walked from view. Typically, Harriet could be heard pulling out her identification and stating, _"Harriet Jones, former Prime Minister."_

"We know," sang the creatures they could not see, _"and now you will pay the price for what you have done. Unleashed unto this world, Harriet Jones, meet our army — the Daleks."_

Rose's eyes closed and she shook her head, wanting more than ever to deny it, just as she had wanted to deny that the Void had gone anywhere near Pete's World. This was a hopeless endeavor, of course.

Swallowing, Harriet repeated her introduction for the last time, and this time, it was the cold, rasping voice of a Dalek that replied.

_"Yes, we know who you are."_

Bravely, Harriet, didn't stop talking. Rose looked at Midna, unable to look at the screen. She was staring at the screen, unseeing, fists clenched tightly and shaking, mouth curled in a silent snarl. Her hair was swept back from her face, her glowing eyes narrowed. If Rose didn't feel the inexplicable need to trust her so much, she would have been terrified.

_"You know nothing of any human. And that will be your downfall."_

"EXTERMINATE!"

Midna took several deep, calming breaths, gulping in air like a man dying of thirst would gulp his water. The portion of the screen where Harriet's empty desk was once shown was now nothing but static.

Abruptly, Midna spun around and punched the wall behind her as hard as she could. To Rose's awe and surprise, a large dent appeared where her fist made contact with the metal. She muttered things under her breath, only snippets of which she could catch.

"Fucking Daleks…I _told_her…could've handled them…took care of the Cybermen…goddamn _bitch_," she emphasized that last with a second punch to the wall, this one going much deeper than the first and causing her to curse with the pain.

Moving instinctively, Rose pocketed her phone, took off the huge gun around her neck, and inched toward Midna, wrapping her arms around the girl's middle. She stiffened, but didn't move, and gradually relaxed. She turned in Rose's arms and returned the hug, burying her head into Rose's shoulder. Rose stroked her soft, silky hair and murmured incomprehensible words of comfort.

"Wouldn't have worked with the Daleks the same way it did with the Cybermen," Midna told her, and Rose was amazed at how clear and un-tearful her voice was. "But it would have worked somehow, probably would have caused them pain, and suffering, like the fucking bastards deserve…can't give a heart to a _Dalek_, after all. God, I'm so sorry, Rose," her vehement tone changed abruptly to one of softness; "you shouldn't have to see me like this."

Midna gently pulled away and locked eyes with Rose. Rose almost gasped at what she found there. Yellow-green eyes burned into the fabric of her soul, piercing, knowing, and far too wise. Wrath churned and boiled just beneath surface, an angry volcano smothered by the ash of something else; rage and fury storming like thunder and growling like a predator in the night, guilt and remorse choking everything and an iron fist of control keeping it all in place. Ordered chaos, turmoil and self-hatred…

Only a second had passed. Midna pulled away completely, carefully extracting herself from Rose's arms.

She shared one last look with Rose before they both turned to look at the screen expectantly. If anyone had anything to say about the exchange between Rose and Midna, or if they had even seen it, they wisely kept quiet. Eventually, after just a few moments of silence broken only by a bit of static, another image appeared in the place of Harriet's video.

Rose found herself deprived of breath, leaning on Midna's shoulder just to remain upright. They both ventured closer to the screen as Jack let out a tiny laugh of relief.

_"Where the hell have you been? Doctor, it's the Daleks!"_

"It's the Daleks," Sarah-Jane repeated. _"And something else is controlling them, we don't know what yet."_

Everyone started talking at once, and Rose smiled, somewhat sadly. Midna pulled her closer to the screen, leaving her to lean against the chair as she took in the damage to the controls, waving away the smoke.

_"Sarah-Jane Smith! And…who's the boy? That must be Torchwood — no, Donna, don't…just, don't — and…hang on…the other one's not coming in real clear, it's mostly static…Rose? Is that you?"_

"Just a second, Doctor, sorry," Midna danced in front of the controls. "Had to keep the rift from blowing us up, after all…hold on…" tongue between her teeth, she typed frantically into the computer, Rose watching. "A-ha! Got it!" she cried triumphantly, then joined Rose behind the chair, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Hello, Doctor!"

But the Doctor wasn't looking at Midna. He was staring intently at Rose, a whole crowd of people trying to peer at the screen from behind him.

They smiled, and no else existed to them. Rose felt her heart pounding loudly in her chest, and she wondered if he felt anything close to the same thing.

"It's me," she smiled slightly, holding up the dimensional jumper for him to see. "I came back."

A grin broke out on his face, showing all his teeth. _"Yes, you did. Rose Tyler."_

Rose shuddered, remembering inadvertently the last time the Doctor had said her name quite like that. That was a cruel day for both of them.

Midna stroked soothing circles on her back, but she didn't need it. He was here. Finally, after so long, she could at least _see_ him.

But she wanted more. She always wanted more. She wanted to hold his hand, hold _him_, feel the rhythmic beat of his double hearts under her hand, feel his hot breath as he whispered something — _anything_ — in her ear. And she wanted, more than anything, to feel his soft, satiny lips against hers — for real this time, nothing in the way, just the two of them.

Forever.

"Doctor." She would not cry. Why the hell would she cry? She would not cry. She would not…_oh, bugger._

She could sense, rather see, Midna giving her a strange look. The hand on her back grew oddly warm, and suddenly, she could think with a clear, tear-free head.

But the screen became full of static suddenly. Midna jerked away, frantically pounding on the controls as the Doctor did the same on his end, but there was no need, for the image came back on its own.

_"Your voice is different and yet…its arrogance is unchanged."_

The voice was horrible, crackling, hoarse, choked and twisted with unadulterated hatred, like maybe a Dalek without the metal cage, but the image that had appeared on the screen was even worse.

_"No…"_ whispered Sarah-Jane in denial, as if she recognized the voice and it was from each of her nightmares come to life. _"No, no…but he's dead…"_

"Welcome to my New Empire, Doctor. It is only fitting that you should bear witness to the resurrection and the triumph of Davros, Lord and creator of the darkness."

"Doctor…" started Rose. "What's it mean? Who is he?"

The Doctor was silent.

_"Have you nothing to say?"_

_"You were destroyed,"_ he breathed at last. _"In the very first year of the Time War, at the Gate of Elysium. I saw your ship flying through the jaws of the Nightmare Child. I tried to save you…"_

"But it took one stronger than you…Dalek Caan himself."

"I flew," sang a frankly insane voice which Rose assumed belonged to Caan, _"into the wild and fire…! I bounced and bounced a thousand times…"_

"Emergency temporal shift," Davros explained, _"took him back into the Time War itself."_

The Doctor pounced on that immediately.

_"No, that's impossible, the Time War is time locked!"_

Davros laughed.

_"And yet he succeeded. Oh, it cost him his mind, but a single, simple Dalek succeeded where Emperors and Time Lords have failed. A testament — don't you think? — of my remarkable creations."_

"And you made a new race of Daleks." The Doctor sounded rightly disgusted. _"But it's still not possible. No one can get past the time lock. Caan must have had some help."_

"From who, Doctor? Dalek Caan was on his own, after all."

"No, someone else, something else. Sarah-Jane, you said something was controlling them. What gave you that idea?"

Sarah sounded startled to be addressed so suddenly.

_"Oh, it was just…earlier, when Harriet Jones — she's the one who made any of this possible, by he way — when she…when she sacrificed herself, for us to get to you…"_ Rose cringed and instinctively reached down and clutched at Midna's hand, as if feeling the Doctor's pain and only another's touch could rid them all of it. _"Before the Daleks came, there was this…this singing, Doctor, and they said that the Daleks were their army."_

"The Eternals," the Doctor hissed angrily, now reminding Rose the other way around of Midna. _"Let me speak to them, Davros. Show them to me!"_

"They are not of this world, Doctor, as you well know. They are biding their time in the Core of this universe, inside the Vortex itself, waiting for us to finish our work."

"And what is that? Destroy the human race…again? Build a new Empire…again?"

"People, the planets and stars become dust, the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become…nothing!"

"You're going to destroy reality so you'll be the only ones left. But what about the Eternals? What is their part in all this?"

Davros laughed again, and Rose swore it was the worst sound she had ever heard in her life…and that was certainly saying something.

_"I have stolen the Earth, Doctor, and Pyrovilia, and Adipose 3, and the Lost Moon of Poosh. I have taken from the universe a collection of planets to entertain the Eternals in all their glory."_

"So Midna's interpretation was right. You've stolen the Earth and tossed it inside a bag of marbles."

"I would have thought you would be grateful, Doctor. We are, after all, sparing the lives of the race you love so dearly."

"There are people dyin' out there!" Rose spoke up. She had been half-listening to Davros and the Doctor argue and half-listening to the screams of the dying on the streets, which was gradually fading off into nothing. She felt so useless. "What do you call that, then?"

_"Control,"_ said Davros simply.

_"Stop it, Davros. The Eternals are not friends to you or any Ephemeral! They serve only themselves; they are only using you for their amusement!"_

"It does not matter, Doctor. I owe them my life and my children. And I gave everything to my children. Quite literally…everything."

The hideous half-Dalek figure with the half-melted face and the glowing blue eye in the middle of his forehead reached a spindly hand into the lapel of his tunic, pulling it apart for the world to see. Rose turned away in disgust and Midna wrinkled her nose.

_"Each one grown from a cell of my own body. New Daleks. True Daleks. I am my children, Doctor. What do you have…now?"_

"After all this time," said the Doctor, in a way that made Rose suspect he was building up to something; _"…everything we saw, everything we lost. I have only one thing to say to you…"_ he paused dramatically. _"BYE!"_

There was the sound of a lever being pushed up, and the screen abruptly went blank, cutting off the Network.

_"EXTERMINATE TORCHWOOD!"_ was the last thing anyone heard from the Dalek's ship.

Rose was moving quickly, pocketing the jumper and picking up her gun, slinging it over her right shoulder. Midna glared at her and crossed her arms.

"You're taking me with you," she stated flatly.

"No, I'm not," said Rose, doing something with her phone before slipping it back inside her long black coat.

"Yes, you are."

"Why is that, then?"

"Because you need me to get to the Eternals."

Midna raised her chin defiantly. Rose sighed. Much as she didn't have the strength to carry along two people, she hardly had the strength to argue it, either.

"I don't have time for this. C'mon, then, grab my hand, and don't let go."

"Yes, ma'am," said Midna smartly, saluting.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Midna grunted in pain as soon as they reappeared, holding just a little too tightly to Rose's arm. She winced in pain, and Midna loosened her grip immediately, grimacing, her insides churning. She felt like she'd left behind her stomach.

"Sure you got everything?" she muttered sourly while rubbing her tender stomach. Rose shot her a dour look.

"You're the one who wanted to come!"

Midna straightened suddenly, head swiveling from side to side to acclimate herself to their surroundings. They were on an abandoned street, cars parked randomly, some with their engines still running and just about all of them with their doors wide open. The pavement was littered — even more than usual — with bits of trash from everywhere. There was no one in sight.

Rose looked at a big silver watch on her wrist, furrowing her brow.

"London," she muttered.

Midna wrinkled her nose.

"Certainly smells like it," she agreed, though her eyes still darted everywhere, senses on high alert. "Look!" she said suddenly, pointing. "It's the TARDIS!"

And so it was, several hundred yards away, parked on the street in the distance, the door just beginning to open, the infamous blue box. Rose made to run, but Midna flung out an arm, obstructing her path.

"Wait," she hissed, closing her eyes. "Something's not right. There should be Daleks. I think I can sense one…there!" she opened her eyes and whirled to the side glaring at a silent, shadowed spot. It was impossible to see anything. But she could sense it. "Go, I'll take care of it."

Rose gave her an incredulous look, but Midna glared.

"Go! And don't run, idiot, teleport, if you can! And no, I'm not doing that again. Just go!"

"But —"

"GO!"

The feeling was getting stronger and stronger, ugly and writhing inside her. With one last, desperate look at Midna and a small grimace to herself, Rose disappeared in a bright silver-blue flash.

Midna fought the blindness of the light and slunk swiftly into the shadows, senses stretched out as far they could go. And then she stopped, abruptly, not too far from the TARDIS. One Dalek, alone, was creeping out of an alley toward the blue box and Rose.

"Oh no, you don't," Midna snarled, allowing the Dalek's hatred to fill her, blackening her heart for what she was about to do. She knelt down on the pavement, her face barely illuminated by the street lights, and bowed her head, closing her eyes, concentrating.

Seconds later, the Dalek screamed in pain and Midna reveled in its agony. She gave it a heart, and it couldn't stand the pain of it. It couldn't stand the remorse she made it feel for the gallons of blood staining its proverbial hands, couldn't understand the lack of hatred, the suddenness and unpredictability of love, couldn't handle the stark and cold betrayal of a loved one she imagined for it, couldn't understand hating oneself for destroying another's existence. In and in poured foreign emotion after foreign emotion, and the Dalek screeched, lost to the throes of arrant anguish and outright torment.

Within moments, the Dalek had risen into the air and killed itself, but Midna remained kneeling on the ground, her eyes clenched tightly shut. _Now to suffer the backlash_, she braced herself bitterly.

She bit her tongue almost cleanly through to keep from screaming aloud as her chest seemed to rip itself to shreds in her mind. The shreds were frozen, then thawed and cooked slowly until there was only a bit ash left. Her mind exploded into colors and sounds she had never seen or heard before, and she pressed her lips together to stifle a whimper. She let out a deep, shuddering breath of relief as the moment of karma passed and from the ashes rose herself again.

Midna stood, wiping a trickle of blood from the corner of her mouth with the back of one hand as she warily looked up. She had braced herself for the accusing stares, but that didn't mean it hurt any less to see them. And, as an afterthought, she considered how terrible it was that _they_ still hadn't at least hugged. No, the Doctor had yet to even stroll completely out of the TARDIS.

Captain Harkness, somehow, was there, and so was Jenny, Mickey, the dark-skinned companion, and the now the Doctor. Rose had been there the whole time, staring at Midna and waiting for the others. It seemed surreal, somehow, all of them standing here, after so long of waiting.

However, before the last person, the redhead, could make out it of the TARDIS, the doors slammed closed and a blue column of light surrounded the box.

"DONNA!" The Doctor shouted hopelessly, but the ship was gone.

Midna hung her head. Dammit. This was definitely going to be harder than she'd thought it would be.

* * *

_Sorry, no reunion yet. Next time, though, I promise._

Damn_, but I'm good! 17 full pgs (on Word) in one day - and that's after decreasing the size of the margins so they wouldn't be as annoying to read through - and updates two days in a row! Whew!_

_Thanks again for all the reviews! And for those who have this story on their alert list but are NOT reviewing, I can't know if something needs improving or if it's just fine the way it is if you don't SAY something about it!_


	8. Unseen Breath

This was a weird one. Lots of healthy angst at the end, semi-sweetness in between. Not the ideal renunion, but it'll do till later.

**Unseen Breath: Chapter Seven**

She'd been through so much. Seven years, after all, was a very long time. Two alone, back when she had been a mere shop girl, had been enough to turn her life completely upside down. Figuratively, of course.

She had seen wars fought and lost. She had tried and failed to save whole universes and planets. She had tried with her all her might to keep herself and those around her from falling apart; and had succeeded, for the most part, though sometimes she still wondered at her own sanity.

Mickey worried about her excessively. He'd never tried to resume their relationship; he knew a lost cause when he saw one. He did try to get her to loosen up, though, to move on, and she tried, she really did, to live the fantastic life _he_ would have wanted her to, but in the end she always found herself immersing her heart and mind into the workings of Torchwood. Mickey had changed too, maybe even more than she had. Where once he was a coward and a simple man, he was now brave, willing to put his life on the line when the situation called for it. He was like a big brother to her now, really.

Pete did his best. Once he got over his "culture shock" he really was the best dad she could ever ask for. He wasn't her dad, but she had learned enough to take what she could get and hold onto it dearly. When she had nightmares, he would rock her back to sleep. It made her feel like a child, but around him, that was all right. He brought her breakfast in bed once, for her birthday. He'd even chased off a few men from Torchwood or Uni who seemed less interested in her advice than in their own libidos. Pete always looked after her when he could; made sure she was well-provided for, that she was taking care of herself. When she moved out to get some feel of independence for herself again, he'd ordered top-notch security all around the flat, completely ignoring Rose's say in the matter. At work, everyone treated her with respect, and she was known for a while just as the Head's Mysterious Kid who had blitzed through her field training and put to work within the first month, but then she'd gone back to school and Bad Wolf had reared its useful little head, and she was suddenly made into an idol. It was often said, in fact, that she had more control over Torchwood than her father.

Her mum was one of the pillars that kept her faith from falling. Whenever she began to doubt herself, what she was doing, or that she'd ever find a way to get back to him, her mum was there, offering a shoulder (though she'd taught herself not to need it after a few months), murmuring words of nonsensical comfort, reminding her of all the great things the Doctor had done so that she'd still know he was worth fighting everything in two universes to get back to. Ironic, that. Her mum hardly ever insulted the Doctor like she used to, unless it was to reprimand his oblivious Time Lord hide for taking Rose for granted. It was a change, one of many that defined their lives.

Tony was probably the other pillar. He kept her faith in the human race intact. When it seemed like everyone was stupid and violent and just didn't understand, he would do or say something that would get her to smile like she had only ever smiled when the Doctor was mentioned under just the right circumstances. He was small, innocent, and blissfully ignorant, growing up on fairy tales only the baby brother of Rose Tyler could. His ginger hair and soulful brown eyes enraptured her so fully she was terrified that something would happen to him.

She feared for everyone that was too close to her, with her life as it was.

Torchwood soothed her adventurous spirit, the one that had been roused by the Doctor the moment she had met him. She jumped at every field mission she was given, even if the investigations came up completely empty of anything particularly interesting or exciting – or, as the purpose of Torchwood seemed to be, useful. Once Bad Wolf had given her the chance to travel to other worlds, the researchers had gone wild, coming to her every other day asking her to go to this planet or that or to check out whole enigmatic solar systems and galaxies just because she could. And she did, salvaging long-lost technology and almost doing what she and the Doctor had always done; see new things, sometimes save the day and usually bring home goodies, run for her life now and again, go home for a while, and then start all over again. It was as good a life as she could ever have asked for without _him_.

That didn't mean she didn't still hurt. That didn't mean she didn't sometimes cry herself to sleep at night, strain her ears on the street for the familiar roar and wheeze of the TARDIS, look a second time at random men in pinstripe suits, or stay up for days on end searching for any remnant of the Time Lords. That didn't mean she didn't find herself reaching for his phantom hand as she realized that delegations on a new planet were going horribly and she'd rather run to retrieve the jacket she'd left a mile away than teleport because running was a reminder of who she was and who she couldn't be and everything she never wanted to face outright. It didn't mean she didn't find herself longing for a hug from someone who could never give it to her, or a manic grin from the one person who could understand her obsession with the new and the interesting and unknown. It didn't mean she wouldn't go a night without gazing to the stars and the moon – however many there were or how odd the patterns seemed – or wish fervently upon a "falling star" though she knew it'd never come true.

But for all the comforts and all the people and all the faith and all the life she had, it would never be enough to take the ache – the _burning_ ache – from her.

Then she met a woman she later learned was Donna Noble, and her faith became something more, something more powerful and more overwhelming than she had ever imagined it could be.

Hope.

She decided she rather liked hope.

The multiverse was fierce and cruel, like harsh reality. The third universe she had ever been to proved that fine enough, proved that any universe would be much better off with a Doctor in it: this one had already been halfway consumed by the Void when she'd arrived. There, she met a different kind of Torchwood than she was used to. Jack was there, and she'd been so excited at first, so elated that he was alive and fine and well that she never once considered it might not actually be him. Donna, somehow, was also working there, and there was an alternate of herself who helped out occasionally but worked primarily for UNIT, which struck her as simply creepy at the time.

So began the cause of her paranoia of screwing things up with just one word. She introduced herself, and the Void swelled. She as good as spoke out a death sentence for countless.

It took her a while to figure out that she had been the cause of it, though. As soon as Donna had been lost to the Void, she was Called back to Pete's World (though at the time she hadn't realized it was Donna who'd been dragging her about all along).

The fourth universe she'd ever been Called to was fighting Daleks and losing horribly. It was there that she learned how to make a viable weapon to destroy them, and before the Void had consumed that world's Donna, she'd made notes and vowed to have her own Torchwood make them, just in case.

Big guns. Jack would have loved them.

Number five was the worst, by far, of all of them. Bad enough to make her hope falter and tumble down a few rough steps. To top it off, she'd been terribly sleep-deprived.

No one was fighting. There was no Torchwood, no UNIT, not even any real government. Haemovores – vampires, basically – had taken over everything, and their slaves, the Carrionites (who used science like they were witches) kept the planet in check. Human blood, apparently, was the tastiest blood in all the universe.

There had been a tiny rebel group that hid themselves in the sewers of London and intercepted "harvests" – random groups of humans taken to be fed upon. That, however, was pretty much the limit of what they could do. Donna and Martha were there, and Martha led the handful that dared oppose the Haemic Empire. When Rose came along and tried to warn them of the expanding Void, they were skeptical, but hopeful, grateful. At last, their suffering could end. They had tried to plan ways to self-destruct the Earth, but the destruction Rose proposed seemed far easier and less messy than anything they could ever come up with.

Just the memory of it was plenty enough to make her sick. She was asked her name, and she told them, and the universe imploded. That was when she realized she would have to be an unsung hero–well, heroine, but who was she to be picky?

Her first night of sleep in so, so long had been wrought with nightmares.

She had come back to Pete's World choking on her own vomit and vowing that never again would she let any world ever go so without hope.

This, of course, only made it hurt more when she failed.

But still she tried, fighting on until nothing was left, giving anyone she could – anyone she _dared_ – a reason to live while they still could. She met herself a few times, and was pleased to find that she was doing the same thing in other universes as well as she could. It was hard to hide her identity in many cases, but if she explained herself before they could make assumptions, they knew enough not to take the risk of even speaking to her directly. She was, essentially, invisible, though she was certainly seen and definitely welcomed, as any trusted hand of help offered was never taken for granted.

Donna was especially good at that.

(Of course, then she'd discovered another power of Bad Wolf's that allowed her to "shift" a given person's perception of herself, rendering her just about invisible. It only lasted for about ten minutes at a time, needed constant concentration to keep it going, and she could only do it about once a day without overtaxing herself, but it was still useful. In fact, she used the basics of it to design a device that could act as a perception filter - but modified, so that the user could be seen or not seen by whomever they chose.)

There was only one universe she'd ever been to where she did not have to fight. It was peaceful and untouched, unprepared for any horrors the seething depravity of the Void may bring it. As it turned out, the only reason she'd been Called was because Donna had nearly been run over by a rather hideously large truck, and she had appeared just in time and in just the perfect position to save her.

Extraordinary, really, how such a small act – in comparison to so many others – would affect her way of thinking so fundamentally.

One life. Billions of lives. Trillions. Countless. Infinity.

What did it matter, in the end?

Which was more important? The lives saved or the life lived?

The answer always eluded her, and she was all right with that. Maybe she was never meant to know. But it was a part of her thinking now; a constant, incessant thrumming that insisted there must be more, must be some factor she was missing, some force or power beyond her comprehension. God? If it was, then the words of power used to describe Him were never enough. She didn't understand, and though she wanted to – almost as much as she longed for the Doctor – she knew, in the back of her mind, that she would probably never even begin to.

It was a strange feeling.

And then was born the first jumper.

She hadn't told the Doctor, for she'd rather tell him face-to-face, but when she had said that she, Mickey, Pete, and Robert had made the things, she had left one person out. Jack.

The idea came from the hoppers that they'd used to get from one world to the other during the Battle of Canary Wharf, and it expanded until it was almost the primary project of Torchwood. It wasn't an official project – if only because it existed purely for selfish reasons – but it was hardly a secret. They pooled the resources of all their allies, asked their advice, their help. Several of them refused to give them technology that would have accelerated its creation by a few years (something about their primitive race accelerating so quickly in knowledge they'd destroy themselves), but it was a loss that could be coped with.

Others spoke of a legend that depicted a race of people rather like the Time Lords, only they specialized in inter-dimensional travel rather than time. More often than not, the Id were said to be equals to the Time Lords, and they worked together to maintain some semblance of order in the multiverse. Both species had been destroyed on Gallifrey in the Time War (which was really nothing much more than a myth in most regions of the universe) but the Id's planet was said to have survived somewhere in the multiverse.

Usually, she was able to find planets with just a vivid description of them. However, no matter how hard she tried, she couldn't get to the Lost Planet of the Id. She always ended up somewhere else entirely. Mickey suggested that, like the Doctor, perhaps the Lost Planet of the Id existed only in one universe. From then on, her secondary goal in every universe she was Called to was to find the planet.

When she finally did, everything had been in ruin, completely broken and shattered and useless but for the legendary Mines of Halyrith. It was there, the legend told, that the Ore of Ages had been mined by the Id. It was a silvery metal that was dangerously radioactive, but had been used for all of the Id's technology. It was said to be the one metal that could withstand the nothingness. She stored as much of it as she could in a box of carbonite, and though she had to spend two weeks in a healing coma afterward, it was worth it.

At first, they hadn't had a clue what to do with the Ore, or how to use it safely. But then a familiar renegade Time Agent (an Agency that wouldn't be around for another three centuries, as it happened) came to them with a plea to keep him safe in exchange for his help in whatever they needed. He could not travel time, else the Agency would find and kill him, but he could part with the Agency's secrets and research. It was a point, Rose was almost positive, just before the Agency had taken away two years of Jack's memory. The only reason why that particular timeline didn't follow through was her and Mickey's insistence that, given enough time, Jack really could be trusted.

Eventually, Jack became a fully-fledged member of Torchwood, with his own team and everything, among which Mickey made sure to involve himself. After giving some advice on how to protect themselves from the Ore and how to incorporate it into what they already had for the jumper, Jack moved to make his own branch in Cardiff to monitor the rift, which was, coincidentally, in the same place as in Rose's home universe. Rose hadn't been sure whether to be amused or depressed when she met Gwen, Ianto, Tosh, and Owen for the first time for the fifth time. It was the rift, however, that finally completed their project, giving the jumper the power it needed for as many safe trips as they could want through the Void. They had to wait half an hour between jumps while the device locked onto the nearest rift and charged itself, but they had no reason to use them again once they were on the other side, anyway.

Jack had died in the Armageddon War against the Demons, months after Tosh and Owen had died saving the world from something completely unrelated. He died a hero, but still he died. Rose would have had trouble at the best of times telling the Doctor that, and now especially since Jack was so clearly – _incredibly_ – alive in his universe, so she kept that little fact to herself until they had time and this whole mess was done and over with.

(If it was the life lived that mattered so much more than the lives saved, was Jack's death worth it? she pondered and wondered, knowing quite well she would never understand. Maybe there was no answer to that question.)

It was pure chance that she was wearing the same outfit when she very first met Donna as the time when she told her to warn the Doctor of the weak point breaking up in Norway, just a week before the preparations for the jumpers were complete. Deciding it wise not to confuse the poor girl any more than she already was, and to keep her from telling the Doctor something she found she was reluctant to have him know until she could talk to him herself, Rose had decided to keep things simple and lead Donna to think that it had all been one whole day for her – when, in fact, it had been over a year since the first Calling.

Time, after all, was hardly linear. It was all relative.

All this, such hard work and long waiting, lead up to one moment. Because, although there was a part of her fretting ceaselessly over her mum and Tony, who were likely lost on some alien world all alone, and another part that panicked when some kind of temporal prison appeared from nowhere around the TARDIS and took it away with Donna in it, this was the one thing she had waited seven years for. There was a part of her that cared for nothing but that, and although that scared her a bit, she wanted nothing more than, after so, so long of neverending fighting, to surrender.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

He wasn't aware which of them moved first. Everyone was introducing themselves heartily, greeting each other like old friends who'd spent miles and years apart in an ordinary life on an ordinary world, all talking at once, all speculating how to get the TARDIS back with Donna safely aboard. Midna was standing now, and part of him felt he should angry at her for what she had done to the Dalek, but that miniscule thought was overwhelmed by two others.

Donna was gone. How could he have so stupid as to not see the trap he'd landed on?

There was no way back to her.

He was lost, as she was to him now.

_But Rose is here,_ whispered a voice that sounded like Donna's in his head. _Isn't that good?_

Yeah. Yeah, it was. No matter how disturbing it was for Donna to be a representation of another part of himself in his own head.

Warmth. Sweet, golden warmth; her body flush against his, a warmth he hadn't felt in so long. Too long. His arms tightened convusively; she probably couldn't breathe, but he didn't hear her complaining, so he held her even closer.

Longer for her, she'd said. That just wasn't fair.

What if she'd changed? Moved on? Lived her life the way she would have lived it if he hadn't jumped in? Rassilon, what if she was with Mickey again?

What did it matter?

She was here, she was safe; she was in his arms. He spun her around, lifted her up, and he thought she might have squealed a little. Her golden hair, ostensibly just slightly darker and more natural now, smelled sweet, like wild honey and strawberries. He loved it, so he buried his nose deeper so he could smell it some more. He'd forgotten how good she smelled.

Someone was laughing. He could feel it against his chest. Who was laughing?

Oh. He was. And so was she. Why were they laughing?

He didn't know.

He knew nothing other than the ache that burned joyously in close proximity to her.

Rose. His Rose.

"Doctor," she whispered. My Doctor.

It was in her eyes, he could see. If there was one thing about her that hadn't changed, from the strong arms that crushed him to her to the lack of makeup marring her beauty, it was her resplendent brown eyes that glowed gold and silver and with life from within. If he'd ever had any doubts before, they had long flown out the proverbial window.

He was hers. Utterly and completely, he belonged to no one but her.

His Rose.

He thought he might – just might – be breathing again; that he could, at last, feel his hearts beating.

It was like quantum physics, really. His hearts were not beating when the right person was not there to hear them, and his lungs would hold no air unless the right person was there to see him breathing. Simple as that.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Midna felt her own pain ebb and die away.

If it took her forever to find the redhead, it would be a forever spent in peace, for at last – at long last – the singers rejoiced. She'd heard the singing from the second she had landed on Earth, its mournful chords striking painfully through her soul.

But it was no longer mournful.

The Doctor and Rose (oh, how she liked the sound of that) pulled away gently, both of them beaming, their hands twining together to retain a bit of contact neither of them were willing to leave go. To them, it was just another adventure now. The worlds were ending, but they would fix that. Their friend could be dying, but they'd fix that, too. They didn't have the TARDIS, but it was only a matter of time before they did. Only the good of the situation could be seen, and the good was that they were together and that was all that mattered.

Midna looked away. She pushed away the unavoidable bitterness that blanketed her mind forcefully. It had no place with her; it would only get in her way. Bitterness hadn't been why she was "chosen".

She inhaled deeply and held her breath, willing herself to knock it off. It hadn't mattered before, so it never ever would. She was all right with that. It kept her focus where it belonged, kept herself balanced so she could balance everything else.

The street had fallen silent, but Jack broke it.

"So, Doctor, what do we do now?"

The Doctor didn't reply, and it took her a moment to realize he was looking at her. Midna exhaled softly, her mind slowly getting itself back on track.

She looked at them, this motley group, this secret army of time's children. Her gaze turned to Rose.

"I need to get to the _Crucible_," she told her carefully. Rose shook her head slowly, her eyes wide. Midna tried not to cringe. She was pushing Rose's strength, she knew, having felt the last attempted teleport with a very tender stomach to contend with afterward. Still, her own powers should assist, and - "You're the only who can take me there, Rose Tyler. I assure you, I will not die. But if we have any chance of getting your friend back alive, I need to get on board."

"No." The Doctor said firmly, and Midna fought the urge to whine at him. Why did he have to be so stubbornly obstinate _now_?

Instead of voicing her thoughts, she looked at him coolly, her expression deliberately guarded, an eyebrow raised skeptically. "And why not?"

"You're not putting Rose in danger."

She almost rolled her eyes. Right. Like she would do that. Idiot. But rolling her eyes would just make her look careless, and that was the worst thing she could be right now to him. Her eyes darted down to where their hands were linked for affirmation.

"You're right. I'm not. Remember the Cybermen, Doctor? You were there, so you must."

"I do." He swallowed, and Midna frowned. This could take some work. But she didn't have much time. How ironic.

"I can do the same thing to them."

"Daleks cannot have hearts." His voice was harsh.

Midna sighed. _Really? I had no idea!_

"I know that, Doctor."

"That's genocide!" Now he was accusing.

Why is it always death and killing with him?

"Before that, Doctor," Midna snapped, losing patience quickly. "I can instill inexplicable fear of me in them, a reluctance to even attempt to kill me…or her," she added hastily, nodding at Rose.

"How?"

She growled and cursed profusely in her head, counted rapidly to ten forwards, backwards and sideways, and released a tiny puff of breath. They were running out of time, dammit.

"I am, shall we say, empathic. Besides, you are not the person I was asking to start with. Let's giver _her_ a say, shall we? Rose?"

Midna didn't know how much the blonde trusted her, but any and every chance she had of getting on the ship lay with her.

Slowly, almost reluctantly, Rose pulled herself from the Doctor's grasp and moved to stand in front of Midna.

"Rose," said the Doctor warningly, almost desperately, but Rose paid him no heed. She reached a hand out to Midna, and Midna took it gingerly. "Rose!"

"Why?"

"What?" Midna said, blinking. "Why what?"

"Why do you have to get on the Crucible?"

"To save your friend," said Midna slowly, unsure if this was supposed to be a trick question.

"You don't even know her, though," Rose bit her lip, like she was trying to figure something out. Their joined hands hung limply between them.

"So?"

"You would risk your life for somebody you don't even know?"

Where was she going with this? What the hell did she want her to say?

"Of course! Why wouldn't I?"

Rose's eyebrows wrinkled elegantly. For her part, the Doctor looked equally confused.

"Do you even know her name?"

"Does it matter?"

"I don't get it."

Midna groaned.

"Look, are we going to the _Crucible_ or not? 'Cause I have to say, time's a-wastin'!"

"How do I know you don't just want to save her so you can kill her yourself?"

That had to be the stupidest thing Midna had ever heard. And she'd thought Rose had _trusted_ her! Well, at least a little. Then again, Rose didn't exactly sound accusing, just…curious. Perhaps it wasn't a lost cause.

"Because that's just stupid." Midna deadpanned.

"How do I know?" Rose repeated. Midna restrained the urge to manipulate her emotions so they could just get this over with.

"All right," said Midna plaintively, "you want to know how you can trust me?" she gently tugged her hand loose from hers and stalked up to the Doctor, stopping just inches from him and looking up into his face. He didn't move, which was good, because she'd rather he be closer for this. "My abilities don't work on Time Lords, conveniently enough. So ask him."

The Doctor met her eyes for a long moment. Midna stood there resolutely, unmoving though inside she fidgeted restlessly. Whatever he saw there, he seemed stunned, just as Rose had earlier; just as Midna had hoped.

"Doctor?"

"Take her." His voice seemed a little strangled, though he didn't look away from Midna.

Midna nodded to him gratefully and turned to face Rose, who was staring at her curiously. She hadn't shown the Doctor what she was, but she had shown him she was powerful enough to protect Rose, and as long as she could do that, she was good in his books. Ah, the trials and tribulations of a Time Lord in love.

"All right," Rose agreed. She held out her hand again, and Midna took it maybe a little too quickly. She was hardly looking forward to having her insides scrambled about again, but compared to the fate that could await the redhead on the Dalek ship, she honestly couldn't bring herself to care. "Can you come, too?"

"Depends," said the Doctor. "How do you plan on taking her, exactly?"

Midna nearly snickered at the half-resigned expression on Rose's face.

"Bad Wolf," Rose replied. The Doctor's eyebrows rose. "It's this…teleport thing. I can control every atom within a three foot radius, including my own, and I can use it to teleport."

Eloquent enough.

"Dangerous with two, then?"

"Yeah," said Rose reluctantly. The Doctor nodded, though he looked a little disappointed.

"Better not take our chances, then. Go."

"Yes, sir," Rose laughed, mock-saluting him.

The next thing Midna knew, there was smooth, hard ground beneath her knees and it took everything she had to keep from emptying her stomach on Rose's trainers.

"Who are you?" a Dalek shrieked.

Midna worked her mouth silently for a moment, but words refused to form. The air positively stank of hatred and open hostility. If anything it was more sickening than the teleport. Rose still held her hand, and she gripped it tightly, using the woman to ground herself to reality with gritted teeth.

"Who are you? How have you come here?"

Rose started to back away frightfully, and as Midna composed herself she saw why. Stupid Daleks. And one of them was red. Honestly, a _red_ Dalek? Brass must have gone out of fashion.

She exhaled shakily, feeling herself come to.

"Hello," she said mock-cheerfully with a big grin that frankly felt like molded rubber on her face. "I'm Midna, pleased to meet you. How are you this fine day? Oh, I'm great, thank you. Fancy a cuppa?"

She faked an obviously false accent at the end, and barely refrained from giggling at herself.

Rose was looking at her in concern; the Daleks appeared startled. Midna was tempted to giggle again, because this was becoming far too fun (and maybe her head had been a little scrambled by the teleport, too), but Rose was terrified and that fear was snaking its way down her own spine and making Midna, yet again, lose her grip on reality. She had to do something to calm Rose down.

Then she realized she was still kneeling. Balogna.

Midna hopped to her feet quickly, never letting go of Rose's hand. The Daleks surrounding them aimed their weapons threateningly. Midna snarled at them experimentally, and they backed away a good two feet, stinking of fear. She smirked in triumph, but nearly gasped when an icy chill crept down her spine like someones had slipped sherbert down the back of her shirt. She tried not to glare at Rose. Really, she did.

Ah, the TARDIS! _There_ it was! The redhead was screaming her head off inside. Typical. The doors still wouldn't open, apparently. Midna allowed herself to feel a bit of joy that was dampened by the Daleks, then nudged Rose to turn and look at the ship as well.

She nearly staggered at a sudden swell of hope that was not her own, then frowned. She shouldn't be feeling _any_ foreign emotions so strongly, unless they were unified and highly concentrated, like the Daleks'. Unless Rose was super-sensitive to emotion as well, at least five times that of a normal human (which Midna rather doubted), then something weird was going on.

Cool.

"You will be sent with the other humans for testing," stated the red Dalek, and Midna scowled.

"I think not," she scoffed. The Daleks, who had begun to inch forward, halted abruptly.

"We are the masters of Earth, and you will obey us!"

"Who said we're from Earth, huh? Maybe we're from some other godforsaken rock you stole, did you ever think of that?"

The Daleks were silent. Midna felt like laughing; Rose's confidence was growing, and it felt great.

"Now, if you don't mind, we're just going to take back what's ours, all right? All right? Yes? No? Nothing? No matter," Midna looked at Rose and smiled. "Want to go home?"

Rose smiled back.

Midna took a step forward, and the Dalek directly in front of her moved back. She let loose a bark of laughter and started walking, the Daleks parting for them as they went.

"Exterminate!"

Rose gasped in fear as soon as the word was said, but Midna pulled her along without looking back. Nothing happened.

"Exterminate!"

They reached the doors of the TARDIS.

"EXTERMINATE!"

"Not today, thank you. Rose?"

"Gladly," she muttered and closed her eyes. Obediently, the TARDIS doors swept open. She swayed, her strength wavering. Midna tweaked her hormones by sqeezing her hand, encouraging the little bugger that was Bad Wolf to stay awake and keep Rose awake, too. "Disabling the prison," Rose murmured, and one of her eyes twitched beneath its lid.

"It's about time!" said the redhead, rushing back to the doors, which she had abandoned in favor of studying the console. She stopped in her tracks before she made it out, looking up at the multitude of Daleks around them. "Rose?" she gasped, spotting the woman, whose eyes opened and mouth quirked upwards in a grin.

And then from behind Midna came the red Dalek's commanding voice.

"Activate chute!"

The doors slammed closed again and the floor fell out from beneath the TARDIS.

"NO!"

Midna was aware of shouting, of falling to her knees and reaching in vain for the ship, letting go of Rose's hand. Immediately, the anchor disappeared, and she found herself writhing backwards on the floor in agony, fighting the foreign hatred that flooded her mind, her own self-hatred utterly consuming her thoughts. She screamed but couldn't hear it; her blood rushed painfully in her ears; she was drowning, dying, unable to surface from beneath an unbearable sea of fear and anger and hurt and antipathy. Sweat broke out all along her body, and she tried to fight it, she really did, tried to tell herself that hating and feeling wouldn't do anything to save the redhead, but no matter what she did or to what lengths she tried to clear her mind, it all came crashing in on her again and again anyway, wave after wave of vile repulsion eating at her like acid from the inside out.

She couldn't feel Rose at all anymore; she was swamped by the Daleks, for they all felt exactly the same things at exactly the same time…and _God_, it _hurt_.

It was too late. It was always too late. She was always too late. Why had she been chosen, of all the people in all the known universes, why _her_? She had failed, she had so utterly failed, and there was no going back, ever, because it was over, everything she had ever tried to work for was over, gone in a split second because she happened to let her guard down and let the Daleks' emotions slip right by her before she could change them. Rose would be killed and she would be killed and the multiverse would be destroyed, the Void would consume everything, and balance would tip forever into the abyss.

The guilt was the worst part of it, far more powerful than anything else, foreign emotion or otherwise, possibly because it was all her own and, mixed with her own revulsion of herself, it was stronger than ever. Part of Midna wanted to shove it away, to stand up and say there were far better things to be doing than rolling around on the cold black floor blaming oneself for everything that went wrong, but that part was so small it was a wonder it existed.

But then there was another part telling her she should be pushing that other part to the forefront, to force it grow and expand and melt away the pain and the guilt and self-recrimination.

It was useless, though.

No, it wasn't.

Yes it was.

_No._

What was the point?

What was the point of the Earth's turn?

It caught the sun, it kept the human race fierce and alive.

Did it?

Yes.

So what are you doing?

Dying.

Why?

The Earth will turn no more. There is no sun to catch, no life to live.

Why?

Too late. Always too late.

Why?

Stupid.

Why?

_Stop it._

Why?

There's no _point_!

Why?

It's all gone!

Why?

I couldn't help it!

Why?

I'm only human!

Only?

Yes!

But a human can be great. A human is fierce, alive.

None left. No more.

There are.

Can't be.

Open your eyes.

Why?

Open your eyes.

Why?

Set her free.

Her who?

The Wolf.

The Wolf?

The Wolf.

Why?

She loves.

What is love?

She knows.

Knows what?

To breathe. The storm will breathe.

Storms can't breathe.

_He_ can.

He who?

The Storm.

Not that again.

Look away from her and she will not breathe, but she must.

Makes no sense.

Does.

Doesn't.

Must be seen to breathe. It makes all the sense of all the worlds.

None at all.

Her soul must be seen. It will not if you do not look. Open your eyes.

They are open.

Not those.

What ones? I've only two.

No. Inside.

_What?_ fool, _look!_

Look,

I _am_ looking!

Are not!

Are too!

Are not!

Are too!

Are you breathing?

…No.

Why?

Can't.

Why?

Dying.

Why?

No one is looking.

_So look for yourself._

Midna gasped.


	9. Flash of Free

**Flash of Free: Chapter Eight**

Rose had been separated from Midna before she could even register what was happening. She was sorely tempted to just teleport them both out of there, but there was something else going on and she wanted to know what it was, and she wasn't sure Bad Wolf would last long enough for that anyway.

Why had Midna collapsed? Was Donna all right? Where was the TARDIS? What was the Doctor doing?

She sighed, poking experimentally at the column of light surrounding her. A blue glow spread from her fingertip as it met an obstruction, and she couldn't help but sigh again. Her Bad Wolf senses told her nothing beyond the perimeter of her "cell", and she felt like screaming.

Well, screaming wouldn't do anyone any good.

Midna was propped up against the walls of her own cell. She was sweating profusely, but no longer convulsing as if she were having a seizure. There was an eerie glow permeating from beneath her pale eyelids and her chest rattled with each shallow breath she took. Rose debated with herself over whether she should risk everthing and get her to safety or wait and see what she could find out.

As it was, the choice really wasn't hers to make.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

"Ma'am, General Sanchez would like a word with you."

"Just me? What about the Doctor?"

"Only you, ma'am."

Martha shared a confused look with the Doctor. "All right, but don't call me that. Lead the way."

Reluctantly, she followed the Captain, grimacing with every step; the screams outside were growing louder and more desperate. It wouldn't be long before the Daleks breached the walls of UNIT.

The General surprised her with his orders. True, she worked for UNIT now and knew the implications of everything they were doing and working on there, but she had never thought they would actually get around to using the Key. It was a violation of everything she'd learned from the Doctor, except for one thing. The Daleks weren't just killing, they were taking prisoners, and they hadn't simply up and destroyed the planet — which, judging by the size of the fleet she'd seen in the sky, they could well have done if they'd wanted — which meant that they needed it for something. If they were all going to die anyway, they may as well take out something the Daleks needed on the way down.

It was for this reason, for that very sacrifice, that she took the Key from the General with trembling hands. An explosion several corridors away nearly knocked her off her feet, and she knew the Daleks had come. General Sanchez wished her luck just as the Doctor, followed closely by Jack, appeared around the corner. She locked eyes with the Doctor's as she slipped the Osterhagen Key into her pocket and put her hands around the metal loops that would activate the device she'd slung around her back.

She had to get to Germany.

"Martha, no!" Jack shouted, but Martha shook her head sadly at him. She didn't care if he knew what Project Indigo or the Key was or even if he understood the risks involved in using the unfinished and untested prototype, because she still had to do this. She smiled at the Doctor one last time, taking courage, somehow, from his cofusion.

Lightning-purple light surrounded her, filled her head, consuming everything until she couldn't even remember what her name was anymore. Miles and miles away from New York, she fell to her knees in a dark wood, biting cold nipping at her skin.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Jenny had no idea what was going on.

She had only been traveling in her meager little spaceship she'd stolen from Messaline for about a month and a half before picking up life signs from a planet in a place where there should not have had been life at all, miles from any tourist shuttle or site. Fascinated, she couldn't help but land to get some more extensive scanning in, and had therefore been both incredibly excited and frightened when something had knocked at her hull.

The girl was naked, but charming and fascinating in and of herself. Jenny gave her a spare change of clothes she had on board, apologizing for not having knickers for her. She then took her to the first planet she'd ever discovered, but was startled to find that all the shopping she'd done there before had been illegal and she was a wanted woman.

But Midna had saved her, albeit with help from an unlikely source, Mickey Smith. He was strange man who claimed to be from this universe originally, had gotten trapped in another, and had just found a way back that had landed him in the wrong place at perfectly the wrong time and he'd ended up being arrested for it. The tale was just unbelievable enough to be true. Besides, he'd claimed to know her father and someone called Rose Tyler.

Of course, with three people on board Jenny had had to aother planet to get a new ship. It wasn't easy, since she didn't have that much money (let alone in the currency required) but eventually she had managed to haggle a trade, giving her ship and a few trinkets to the merchant in exchange for a more comfortable, livable space. The first time she had landed on that planet, Jenny had been bombarded with offers from every direction, for that seemed to be all this planet was for; trading, mostly in spaceships, upgrades, and weapons. She hadn't had a use for the planet at the time.

But then Mickey asked to be taken to Earth, and while Jenny vaguely recognized the name, she had no idea where to even start to begin looking for it. Midna rescued her yet again by taking control (though how she knew how to fly the ship when Jenny herself only barely could, she would never know) and landing them in some place Mickey called Cardiff. Wherever they had landed, she decided firmly that it didn't matter because the TARDIS was there, that little blue box her father and his red-haired friend had claimed to travel in. He was here! Mickey seemed to recognize the box for what it was as well (which made sense, if he knew her father), and while Jenny was sure Midna couldn't possibly know what the thing was, she had smiled secretively and swept from the ship before either Mickey or Jenny could even take a step, humming something unintelligible under her breath.

What followed that was a blur of confusion and wonder. Midna was apparently someone very, very important, though Jenny certainly hadn't realized it when she had first let the mysterious girl aboard her ship. Jenny didn't know what Cybermen were, but from the looks on both her father's and Mickey's faces (and Mickey was cursing vividly under his breath for at least five minutes straight) she could gather that they weren't the most pleasant people in the world to hang around with. As Midna spoke, Jenny drew her own conclusions that the metal men had been flesh and blood once but something had happened to make them inhuman.

When the threat had been pretty much neutralized, Jenny had darted frantically through and around the Cybermen to get to her father, all but tackling him with a hug. Jack Harkness was confused, though she didn't know why he would be. From the sounds of it, he knew the Doctor, but possibly not well enough to have heard about her? Maybe her father didn't talk about her at all. He didn't seem to be the kind of man to dwell too much on the past.

Then another question came along: who on Messaline was Rose?

The way they'd talked over that jumper-thing, Jenny couldn't help but make the assumption that they were a little more than friends, but hadn't seen each other in a really long time. It hurt her father, somehow, to speak to Rose but not see her, and Jenny had done her best to comfort him (even though she really hadn't a very good idea as to what she was comforting him for) by holding his hand tightly in hers. He had seemed grateful, a bit of tension easing around his eyes and his shoulders relaxing a bit.

Rose, for the very brief time Jenny had gotten to hear her voice, sounded like an amazing person. She somehow made light of a seemingly impossible situation, somehow hoped for something Jenny would never have dared to, and somehow even met up with Midna and eventually helped to establish contact from across the stars. Jenny found herself really wanting to meet her.

She wondered if Rose would mind much if she took to calling her "mum".

Then Midna surprised her yet again, and Captain Jack appeared out of nowhere, claiming to have worked a long while to repair whatever the Doctor had done to his teleporter. They'd all piled out of the TARDIS, all but one, and the temporal prison (which, the Doctor explained, had been waiting for them to land right on it; a trap) took the beautiful little blue box away with Donna in it. Midna and Rose followed, and Mickey suggested they get somewhere safe before the Daleks (weird, evil little buggers who Jenny found she hated on sight) started hunting them down. Torchwood was a shining beacon to the Daleks, so the Doctor agreed that they'd use Jack's teleporter thing (space-hopper, as her father called it) to get to UNIT in some place called New York.

Martha had disappeared almost immediately to report to whoever it was she worked for, and the Doctor, suspiciously curious rather by nature, had followed after a few minutes of ordering other people around and getting them to do a bizarre combination of evacuating and fighting back. Jack went with him, as back-up, he'd said, and so Jenny and Mickey had been left to their own devices.

Mickey did something with the computers, pounding rhythmically away at the multitude of keyboards around them, and stated that the UNIT files were virtually impenetrable and the Daleks would have one hell of a time trying to get information from them. He did something else, hooking the mainframe up to his dimensional jumper and a few seconds later claiming that he'd shielded the building, though it wouldn't hold for long. It was long enough for several employees to escape up top via helicopter, but not enough to get everyone out. Lights flashed periodically against the shield until it finally gave in and there was an explosion in the control room. Mickey snatched back the jumper and leapt away just in time to escape exploding bits of computer.

He handed her a comically oversized gun that one of the other soldiers gave him, to which Jenny grinned almost manically and took up position behind a desk, facing the huge hole in the wall. Mickey dove behind another desk and took aim with his own huge gun. Around them, the remaining soldiers did the same, red berets standing out in contrast to their dark uniforms, P90s and M-15s held at the ready. This was what she had been born for and, extraordinarily (considering the principles her father had managed to instill within her on Messaline), she felt no guilt about destroying these bastards.

She caught a glimpse of the first Dalek and pulled the trigger without hesitation, literally blowing its top off. Then Daleks piled into the room all at once, the machine guns of the other soldiers doing little more than causing bullets to bounce harmlessly off their hard metal shells. Jenny tried to focus through the screams of the dying and the declarations of imminent death from the Daleks, firing repeatedly and with precision as though she were holding a grenade launcher and not a gun. Mickey was doing the same; they had the only guns that had any effect on the overgrown garbage bins.

But they just kept coming. There was no end to them, and no Doctor in sight. She killed one and four more appeared. They were getting overwhelmed and there was nothing she could do. Except maybe…yes, she would have to.

Closing her eyes and trying to ignore the little voice in her head screaming at her that she was crazy, Jenny kissed her gun goodbye and stood carefully, her hands in the air, calling for a cease fire, saying that they surrendered. Mickey and two remaining soldiers looked at her like she'd gone and lost it, but the Daleks did stop firing. Taking their cue, they put their own weapons down with obvious reluctance. They were surrounded anyway and would never have lasted much longer.

Jenny swallowed, trying not to cry when she saw Jack, her father, and an aging man in a dress uniform peering in a doorway to her far left. Her father looked at her sadly, and she avoided looking at him for fear she might alert the Daleks to his presence. If all went well, he'd get her out. She knew he would. He was her father. He was the Doctor.

She looked the nearest Dalek straight in the eyestalk. "We surrender," she repeated.

And she still had no idea what was going on.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

"Excellent. Even when powerless the Bad Wolf is best contained." Rose winced at the gravelly voice of Davros, but forced herself to look at him.

"Scared of me, then, are ya?" She desperately wanted to know what Davros knew about Bad Wolf, but didn't quite know how to go about asking. She poked at the cell again, frowning when the atoms only barely registered in her "other" senses. They weren't electrons, though, or at least not a concentrated field of them, so if there was an emergency, she _might_ be able to get out.

"It is time we talked, companion of the Doctor," Davros continued, refusing to rise to the bait. "After so long of waiting, I finally have you —"

"Wait a minute!" Rose interrupted, irritated. Why did all the bad guys have to gloat so damn much? Just because she wasn't entirely sure she could escape if she really wanted to… "I don't care about your glory and all the work you went through to get me here; I want to know what's going on right here, right now."

She had to be proud of the confidence belying the fear she felt.

"This is the "Vault", yeah? So that means you can't be in charge, because what person in charge of annihilating twenty-seven worlds would be stuck down here with the prisoners?"

"We have…" Davros spoke indignantly, and then paused, considering; "an arrangement."

Rose raised a skeptical eyebrow. "So…you're like…a—a _pet_, then?"

"And to think," spat Davros in disdain, "that you crossed entire universes, striving from parallel to parallel to find the Doctor again, and he's not even here to see that you are mine to do as I please."

She shuddered inside.

"Then why am I still alive?" she questioned bravely, all the while wondering how Davros could possibly know so much.

"You must be here," Davros replied simply, hatred coloring every note of his voice. "It was foretold. Even the Supreme Dalek would not dare to contradict the prophecies of Dalek Caan."

He pressed a button on his half-Dalek-thing and a light from the other side of the room lit dimly, revealing a Dalek whose top had opened, showing the hideous, pinkish beast within. It was chained around the bottom, reminding Rose of the first Dalek she'd ever seen, in Utah. Midna shifted in her uneasy sleep, mumbling something vehemently under her breath. Rose felt her resolve to stay shattering slowly.

"So cold and dark…fire is coming…the endless flames…"

"What is that thing?"

"The last of the Cult of Skaro," said Davros proudly, turning away from the monstrosity to look at Rose.

"_Ruthless is his tamer…the Wolf in her Cage…_" Dalek Caan laughed manically.

"What?" said Rose, dumbfounded, staring at the Dalek. The singing…the singing she hadn't heard in quite a while now…that was the last line of the incessantly repeating verse that had given her headaches for hours on end before, wasn't it?

But the last of the Cult of Skaro…it survived. How could it have survived? Everything she and the Doctor had done, all that they had sacrificed, and Dalek Caan was here, now, alive, if apparently rather insane.

Her blood boiled.

"You have much in common, you know," said Davros casually as Caan continued to giggle gleefully. "He did much more than simply fly into the Time War all on his own…he saw _time_, its infinite complexity and majesty raging through his mind, and…he saw you, joining him, for all eternity, the Bad Wolf."

"How do you know that? How can you possibly know that?" She wasn't sure who she was asking, Davros or Caan.

"_And the rain of the Storm softly trembles on her lips as she is set free from her Cage forever…_" sing-songed Dalek Caan, and Rose stared at him dubiously. "_…seeing and calming the darkness, claiming the soul of the midnight sun…the _golden_ sun…it shines, oh it shines so brightly in the dark and the fire, the endless flames, the cold Eternal, with a heart of the Diamonds, howling, Bad Wolf, in the joining…_" he trailed off, breaking into a fit of hysterical laughter. Midna shifted again, her brows furrowing angrily, but did not wake.

"Admittedly," Davros uttered, "much of what he says is nonsense we cannot hope to interpret, but what we have is enough."

"_This, I have foreseen, in the wild…the Doctor, the Storm, in the winds and the mercies of the thunder…he will be here, as witness to the end of everything…the Doctor and his precious children! And one will die …_" And, abruptly, Caan fell silent.

"So you see, Bad Wolf. It is your death he has foretold."

"Maybe not," said Rose reasonably, though she could reasonable after hearing all of that was beyond her. "It jus' said 'one will die', not which one. It could be talking about the Doctor, for all we know." God, she hoped not.

"No," Davros disagreed immediately. "There is another fate set in store for the Doctor. Caan has said that at the end of it all his soul will be bared to the world, and all will know his true face, his true name. Quite possibly, it is a fate far worse than death that Dalek Caan has seen for your precious Doctor."

Something in Rose snapped.

"Did you do it?" she asked Caan, hardly aware of what she was even saying. Her insides were seething. "Did you close the doors on Donna? Where's the TARDIS? What have you done?"

"Ah, there it is," Davros laughed, and Rose bit off her tirade forcefully. "The fire and rage and _ruthlessness_. You finally show yourself, Bad Wolf. Go on, don't be shy; show me your true self!"

"What have you done?" Rose repeated, shaking her head and trembling with the effort of controlling the anger bursting to cold fire within her.

"Merely what is meant to be," said Davros.

"What do you mean? Why am I here? Why am I still alive?"

"My master bids it so," Davros responded, his disfigured face twisting cruelly.

"Who?"

"The one who has traveled so far and so beyond our comprehension just to get what he wants. You see what can be done when one individual sets their mind to it, Wolf? You see what you can become if you just…give in? My master wants more, he always wants more, and nothing, _nothing_ can stop him, _nothing_ can stand in his way!"

"I guess he hasn't meant the Doctor then, has he?"

Davros laughed, apparently amused by Rose's response.

"On the contrary," he chuckled, "my master was once very good friends with your Doctor. It was only when he was driven mad by the Vortex and the Untempered Schizm that he saw the error of his ways."

"So you're followin' a madman?" snorted Rose incredulously. "And here I thought we were up against something _intelligent_."

"And who is 'we', Rose Tyler? Who stands with you now?"

"I do."

Rose whipped her head around; sure enough, standing weakly on wobbly knees, leaning heavily on the force field around her holding cell, Midna glared heatedly at Davros. Her eyes shone brightly. She spoke with a clenched jaw, as if she were in serious pain but was determined to see herself through it anyway.

"And I'm not alone. There are many who stand by her."

"I see no one," spat Davros, wheeling his Dalek-thing around to face her.

"You don't need to," said Midna, smirking. She looked at Rose and gave her a quick wink, and Rose couldn't help but feel comforted, like everything was going according to plan now.

"Who are you, child?"

"Exactly," Midna exclaimed, beaming brightly. Her teeth were still clenched, however, and she was hunched over slightly and obviously trying not to breathe too heavily. No matter her mannerisms, she was clearly in pain, and Rose tensed, prepared to teleport to her side at any second. "Got it one; brilliant, fantastic, great job, well done. Anything else?"

"Explain your purpose here!"

"Ah," Midna's smile faded. "Yeah, now…that could take a while to explain. You might want to sit down — oh, you are? Okay then, I guess I should start from the beginning; although, mind you, the beginning is way far back for me, as I was there, at the start. Of everything. Sort of. As _you_ know it, at least. I came from the _Foundation_, after all, and that's just way, _way_ back, before the Rebirth, which I caused, actually, so I suppose in some twisted, roundabout way, I _made_ you," Midna paused, then shuddered. "Guh…that is just disgusting, really, truly —"

"ENOUGH!" Davros shouted. Midna stopped and pouted, looking put-out. Rose tried not to laugh, feeling giddy.

Midna sighed and looked forlornly at Davros from beneath her lashes. "All right," she moaned long-sufferingly. "I'll tell you. But do I get a cookie afterwards?"

Rose burst out in laughter, unable to control it. She bit her lip and stifled a grin when Davros glared at her.

Midna sighed again. "Okay, this gonna sound confusing at first, but…" she stopped, her whole body going rigid. Her fists clenched closed tightly, her eyes following half a second later. A spasm ripped through her, jerking her spine forward. She ran face-first into the wall of the holding cell and fell back into the other, slumping listlessly.

"Midna!" yelled Rose, and her eyes snapped open. Her gaze was wild, frantic, like a helpless animal hunted by the strongest predator in the forest, cornered and unable to defend herself or call for help. She spasmed again, fists pounding into the wall as though she could find something on it to grab and hold onto. Her mouth opened in a wordless, silent scream.

Rose teleported without even thinking about it, landing right beside Midna in her cell, completely losing awareness of Davros. She grabbed the girl's upper arms, shaking her slightly.

"Look at me," she ordered, but Midna's gaze was darting everywhere but at her. "Look at me!" Rose repeated, freeing one hand to cup Midna chin and force her head in front of hers, staring right at her eyes. At them, not into them, as she had when they were on Jenny's spaceship. "Midna, please!" she begged, not knowing why it mattered this much.

Finally, Midna's eyes met hers and her body stilled under Rose's hands. Her muscles melted from rock-hard to relaxed and pliable in less than a second, her face softening from flurried fear to calm content, fists opening to reveal bleeding crescents on her palms.

"Rose?" said Midna, clutching at Rose's arms to remain upright. Her voice was dreadfully hoarse, like she had just had sand to drink. Rose hurried to support her, trying to ignore the critical way in which Davros was studying them. He didn't seem surprised that Rose had teleported, but he was looking at Midna with unabashed fascination.

"_The joining…_" cackled Dalek Caan somewhere behind her.

"I'm here," Rose assured Midna quietly. "I'm righ' here, you're…safe." She hesitated on the last part, but with Midna awake and sort-of-sane now, she was sure they would be. Midna could just do whatever she had done when they first got here to keep the Daleks from killing them, right?

"Rose," Midna whispered, so that only she could hear. "I can give you...enough..._strength_ to get us out of here, but it might not work. Bad Wolf is weak."

"Sorry, Davros," Rose apologized, looking up at him, "but we gotta go now. Things to do, worlds to save, you know how it is."

She tensed, closing her eyes, feeling only with Bad Wolf, defining atom from atom, transferring it across space, back to Earth, back home. Blue-silver light consumed her world for the next several moments, and when she could no longer see it from behind her closed eyelids, she opened them.

Davros smirked at her from the other side of the holding cell's wall. Midna cursed.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

"I have a job to do," Martha told the German lady. She swept past her, heading to the tower. She was dimly aware that the woman was following. It didn't matter. She still had to do it.

She wondered how Rose and Midna were, if they'd had any luck yet. Judging by the remaining presence of those stupid pepper-pots, she could assume they were either lost, captured, or dead. Any of those would, frankly, suck. She hoped Rose, at least, was all right, because the Doctor needed her, and the universe needed the Doctor.

She wondered what Tom was doing, what he thought she was doing, if he was all right or if the Daleks got to him. God, she hoped the Daleks hadn't got to him. Her resolve strengthened.

"Young," said the woman of the soldiers that had once guarded the tower as Martha put her hand to the keypad. She rambled for a bit, probably trying to convince Martha to not do what she was trying to do. Martha ignored her, trying not to feel too much like the woman was probably right. "So much glamour, but so young."

Martha swallowed in spite of herself. That described the Earth, didn't it? Young and full of glamour. But not all of it was glamour. A lot, in fact, was horror. Especially now, which was why she had to do this. She was the only one who could.

"I heard the soldiers talking. Many times. They would speak of the Osterhagen Key," her voice unmistakably held quite a bit of fear now, trembling, forcing the words past her aging lips.

The keypad beeped agreeably with Martha's identity, and she tuned out the German woman behind her. It wouldn't matter soon, anyway.

When she heard the gun's safety click behind her, she was only mildly surprised.

"You will not go," said the woman determinedly, pointing the muzzle at Martha's head with a shaking hand.

"I've got no choice," Martha insisted.

"I know the Key," said the woman. "What it does."

She spoke in German then, and Martha was doubly glad, not for the first time this night, that she'd had to learn some of the language while working for UNIT. She understood the woman, understood what she was doing and why. Had this been happening two years ago and she stood in her place, she would likely have done the same. But what was one planet to the rest of the universe? It was worth it. It had to be.

She nodded to her. "Then do it."

Martha's eyes met the woman's, whose gun hand started trembling violently. Her face twisted, for she was so unwilling to let anyone go through with something that should never have to be done. For one moment, Martha wished she were in the other woman's place. Then she could just go home and hold her mother tight, kiss Tom until she couldn't feel her lips anymore, ride out the waves of the end of the universe in a place familiar enough she could pretend she was safe.

The gun lowered, and the woman let out a breathy little sob. Martha nodded at her sympathetically, commending her for her bravery and determination and righteous protection of the world, then turned away and stepped into the lift.

"Martha," she said before the lift started moving, "for heaven meet you!"

Martha pressed the button that would take her up. She nodded at the woman as the doors closed.

"I know."

Later, as she held the Key in her hand and Annato from Station Five asked her the dreaded question 'what do we do?', the words 'given what we are about to do' from the unnamed man in Station Four running rampant through her head, a million thoughts delved in and out of her. Only one stream was certain.

_Not yet. Not yet. Give him time. Give him time. Peace first, destruction later. What would he do? Talk to them. He'd talk to them. I'll talk them._

"I've got higher authority," she said, almost smiling, "way above UNIT. And there's one more thing the Doctor would do."

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Jenny, hands on her head, walked in a line with the other prisoners, barely a step behind Mickey and just in front of one of the UNIT soldiers. She wondered what her dad was going to do now. He would probably use Captain Jack's teleporter to get to the Crucible, she thought, but then reconsidered. What would getting caught and likely killed with the rest of them going to do? It sounded the sort of reckless thing the Doctor would attempt, but she was sure he wasn't quite insane enough to get caught and not expect to actually be able to come up with something while talking his way out of trouble.

Her head pounded rebelliously against her thoughts.

They were made to turn a corner, then another, and another, until Jenny seriously began to lose track of where she was going. It was a boring walk, at any rate. Why couldn't the transmat have brought them closer to wherever they were going; or, better yet, directly there?

A brunette in a gray jacket further up front muttered something under her breath, only the last of which did Jenny catch. The Doctor. Her voice seemed familiar, too. Perhaps one of those that had helped the Doctor get back to Earth? Sarah-Jane or something like that, wasn't it? How did she get here?

Jenny got the feeling that things were only going to get more complicated from there.

A middle-aged blond was the first to notice the menacing green light above their little group. Oh, this couldn't be good. Testing? What kind of testing? Testing for what?

Nothing made sense. Sarah-Jane pulled her and Mickey — and Mickey, in turn, pulled at the mouthy blond — to a door. Sarah-Jane took out a stick of lipstick and pointed it at the door, slipping inside quickly when it opened and gesturing for the rest of them to do the same before they were noticed. Jenny could barely contain her curiosity, but it was rather dampened when they peeked out the window to see what they had left behind.

Jenny covered her mouth in horror.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

"Witness," ordered Davros, ignoring Rose's dilemma. She clutched at Midna's arm, bewildered. Davros flicked another switch on the convenient panel before him and a screen flickered to life on a wall to their left. It looked holographic and showed a cavernous room full of Daleks.

Why hadn't it worked? Was it because she was with Midna, or because her strength was waning? Why hadn't Davros seemed the least bit concerned that Rose could teleport at all? And what had Caan meant?

Her head swam.

On the screen, dozens of people were lead into the room by yet more Daleks, into their "designated area". Rose couldn't recognize anyone, but there were so many there she was sure her whole family could have hidden among them and she wouldn't have noticed one of them.

The Supreme Dalek's voice rang out over an intercom; _"Activate planetary alignment field!"_

Something clicked in Rose's head. The planets. They weren't just being collected or trampled on. They were being used for something. But what for? Rose's head whirled, and she wished she were the Doctor. She was tempted to use the jumper to speak to him, but there was no telling if he still had it, and if he did, there was no way to speak to him without Davros or one of the Dalek guards noticing.

"Do you know what they're doing?" she whispered to Midna, who shook her head, looking frustrated.

"No, and I should. I don't…"

The sound of something being powered up buzzed in their ears.

"Behold," said Davros; "my genius."

Rose and Midna watched, horrified, as every human on the screen disintegrated under the light of the unidientified green thing above them. Rose was forcibly reminded of Satellite Five as she recalled what Davros had said to the Doctor over the Subwave: _"People, the planets and stars will become dust, the dust will become atoms and the atoms will become…nothing."_

And that was exactly what it looked like. It was some kind of super-weapon.

_"Test completed."_

That was just the test. All those lives, lost just for a _test_. They were nothing to the Daleks, _nothing_, just targets to practice on. No matter how many times she saw inhumanity such as this, it never got any easier to bear. Rose only just choked back a sob.

"No," whispered Midna in disgust. "They didn't. They _couldn't_. Why?  
_Why_?" she bellowed at Davros. "What's the _point_? They were innocent!"

Davros made some kind of movement akin to a shrug. Rose understood how Midna was feeling. The hot-and-cold anger from before came back to her with a suddenness that would have been startling if she hadn't been so busy feeling it.

"That is only a taste. Soon, the stars will fall at my feet, and my master will control…everything."

"Including you?" Midna sneered. "Is that what you hope to achieve from all this? Go sniveling off to your master like the pathetic little coward you are in hopes that he will spare you and the Daleks in exchange for your invaluable service when it's all said and done?" her voice was harsh, like Rose had never heard it before. "Why are you doing this? What could your master possibly hope to get by building something like that?" She pointed at the screen.

"Bad Wolf."

Rose and Midna snorted in unison. Davros glared at the pair of them.

"Every atom in existence is bound by an electrical field. The Reality Bomb cancels it out. Structure falls apart. That test was focused on the prisoners only; full transmission will dissolve every form of matter. Bad Wolf itself cannot be destroyed, but its host is weak. When her body, her 'Cage', if you will, has gone, my master will have the powers of a god at his fingertips."

Rose's blood ran cold. Midna froze in disbelief.

"The stars are going out. It's different. It's not the Void; I stopped that. None of the other universes ever survived long enough for me to see what came next. Except Donna's parallel one. There was _darkness_, not nothingness, 'cos it went on to after I…I helped save this one, so it's different. Even though there was only one of me with Bad Wolf, that was a parallel universe within a parallel univerese, so it was the same, just…It's never gonna end. The stars are goin' out."

Rose only half knew what she was going on about. All she could feel was the cold ice cube of despair that was firmly growing in her stomach, rising sickeningly up her throat.

"Twenty-seven planets," Midna muttered. "They all make one big transmitter. All the power they need to destroy the universe. But we're in a rift. Why? It's not just a rift across time and space, is it? The Bomb will transmit through the rift…into other universes. All the other universes, destroying everything." Rose couldn't see her face, but her voice burned with…something. Anger? Determination? It reminded her of the Doctor when someone had gone just a step too far in his book.

When Midna continued, venom dripped from her words. "Your master's big, giant army wasn't good enough to get rid of Rose, so he fashioned a new plan. One that would erase everything in existence. But you're just a _second_ out of sync with the rest of the universe. That's not just to hide from the Doctor, is it? You're hiding from your own weapon. Which, of course, means that the planets you stole will survive as well, but you don't plan on it being that way for long, do you? Of course you don't, you're evil, why would you? But it still doesn't make sense! Why destroy everything to get the power to rule over that which won't exist anymore once you have it? Oh, why am I asking you, you're only following orders," she stopped for breath. Davros looked dazed.

"Rose?"

"Yeah?"

"Do you remember what I told you when we first met?"

"Some of it, why?"

"I know what it's like to do what they're trying to do. Destroying the universes. Not fun, that."

Rose wondered if she should take that at face value. "I think they disagree."

"I think you're right."

Midna was silent for a moment. Only a moment, though, and Rose wondered if it was a record for her.

"But when _I_ did it, it was different. There was a reason, and I hated it, but it _was_ a reason. This…this is pointless. Completely, utterly pointless."

"Yeah, and? What are ya gonna do about it?" Rose tried not to sound too excited. Davros still seemed stunned; she wondered if Midna had a hand in that.

Midna turned to face her. The intensity of her gaze was almost discomfiting.

"I'll need the Doctor's help," she said softly, gold-green eyes blazing. "But the universes are toppling out of balance and it's my duty to fix it."

"So…what are you gonna do?"

"I'm going to wipe every last _fucking_ Dalek out of existence." Midna spat. Rose flinched. Davros was still frozen, and none of the other Daleks moved, either.

"Do you have to kill them? I mean…" she trailed off, not sure what it was she wanted to say. Midna's gaze softened a fraction.

"They were never meant to exist, Rose."

"Weren't they?" Rose fumbled, trying to find solid ground. Why didn't she want the Daleks dead? It would solve so much. But something in her remembered the very first Dalek she had ever encountered. "I mean, if there has to be a reason for everything, then there had to be a reason there were ever any Daleks to start with, righ'? Who's to say you won't just tip everything out of balance by getting rid o' them?"

She held her breath. Midna narrowed her eyes up at her, eyebrows furrowed low, forehead wrinkled in the middle. Her eyes were calculating and critical. It was, Rose had to admit, a rather intimidating look. No matter if she was shorter than Rose, Midna was scary.

"That…" said Midna slowly, her face gradually relaxing until she actually looked a little lost, "…is brilliant. Never would have expected it from you."

"Oi!"

Midna smirked slightly.

"Not like that. I mean…" she got a far-off look in her eyes, looking abruptly every bit the fifteen-year-old her body portrayed. "It used to be instinctive. I'd automatically know what was supposed to be wrong and what wasn't."

She looked at Davros over her shoulder, still frozen with a look of shock. Rose was sure now that Midna was doing something to keep him like that, like his moment of surprise was...extended.

"But it's not like that with this. And it's more than just the fact that my powers are only an echo of the ghost of the shadow of the fraction they used to be. It's like…" she shook her head shifting uncomfortably. For the barest of instants, she wasn't touching Rose, and that was when she saw it. A look of absolute panic flashed across Midna's pale face — which grew paler as Rose watched — and she snatched out with one hand and grasped one of Rose's own. Her expression calmed instantly, like it had never happened.

"Like what?" asked Rose, her eyes never leaving Midna's face in case whatever-it-was happened again. Midna swallowed.

"I can feel everything," she said hoarsely. "Everything. I can feel your concern. I felt his surprise," she jerked her head back at Davros, "and made it last longer, then copied the emotion and put it into them," she looked pointedly at the Dalek guards. "The closer I am to the subject of an emotion, the more I can feel it, even if they only feel it a little. Like, I can feel that you feel your love for the Doctor as your subconcscious thinks of whatever he's doing wherever and whenever he is, but I feel it as though you two were in the throes of making love."

She said all of this so casually, shaking her head in astonishment, that Rose could have easily mistaken her words for something else entirely. As it was, she just about turned into a tomato from head to toe.

Seeing this, Midna smirked, unabashed.

"And I felt that, too." The smirk vanished. "But when I let go," she demonstrated, gently releasing her grip on Rose. Panic flashed across her face again and she grabbed the hand back. Rose squeezed gently. "I can't feel you as strongly anymore, and I get overwhelmed by them," she looked at Davros again. "They are nothing but hate, anger and fear. It hurts. I can't change them unless I have someone to anchor me. One Dalek," she snorted; "no problem. Billions? I'm gone. That's what I get for waiting so long."

She sighed. Rose tried to understand, only now recovering from her embarrassment.

"So…you just need…I mean… What?" She went back to being confused rather quickly.

Midna only laughed.

"Are you goin' to kill 'em all?" Rose settled for asking, looking around them. Midna frowned, taking her question seriously.

"I think —" she started, then stopped, uncertain. "I think I need the Doctor," she admitted at last.

"What for? Not that I'm complainin' or anythin', mind, I'm jus' curious."

Midna sighed tiredly, and Rose was made suddenly aware of how young, physically, this girl was. The multiverse was fierce and cruel, she reminded herself grimly.

"He might know a way of safely containing the Daleks. They're in a tiny little pocket of time right now, sealed off from everything else. They can leave as they wish and pull other things in with them as they wish, but right now they are in a part of the universe that technically doesn't exist at all. If the Doctor knows a way to…I dunno, time lock it or something so nothing can come or go, the Daleks will exist all on their lonesome out here and the universes will be safe from them."

"But they could get out. I mean, Dalek Caan went someplace that was time locked, and he lost his mind bu' he still survived."

Midna nodded. "I thought of that. But they never did any of that on their own. Whoever helped Caan get to the Time War wasn't the same person who tore a hole in the Void to get…well, wherever he is now. If we cut off Davros' connections — the one who brought Caan to the Time War and the one who broke free of the Void — then the Daleks should never be able to escape."

"But what difference would that make? That's as good as killin' them, isn't it?"

"No. I said this place _technically_ doesn't exist at all; it does, it just isn't perceivable to any living thing because there is no creature that can see both one second into the future and the present. It's impossible. The Daleks will live a lonely existence, no more killing or anything — unless they kill themselves, which is always a possibility — but they will live."

Rose nodded. "All right. So how do we get to the Doctor?"

Midna looked around them for a moment before shrugging.

"We wait."

"Can I ask you somethin', before you put Davros back to normal?"

"'Course," she answered immediately. "What is it?"

"What does he feel like?" Rose asked, nodding to Caan. Midna narrowed her eyes.

"I didn't even know he was there."

Dalek Caan laughed insanely, as if he had heard them.

"What?"

"I can't feel him."

"What do you mean?"

"It's like…" Midna paused, searching for the right words. "It's like he's not feeling anything on the same wavelength as everyone else. Dalek Caan is mad,  
_literally_; he's not operating on the same levels as the rest of us. I could recalibrate my abilities to match his, but he's so far gone I'm not sure I would feel him even then. Did he say anything while I was out?"

Rose swallowed.

"Yeah," she said, grudgingly. "But it didn't make a whole lot of sense."

"Any singing? Something that didn't belong, even with a mad-Dalek?" she wiggled her eyebrows, smiling. "Maybe something you recognized?"

"Why…" Rose squeaked, then cleared her throat, avoiding the girl's amused glance. "Why do you ask that?"

"Because," she said, like it was the most obvious thing in the world, "I might have stolen the singing from you, but that doesn't mean you don't remember having it."

"S-stole?" She was so confused now.

Midna nodded easily. "Yep. So…anything?"

Rose looked at her. If she was telling the truth, then…

"The last line," she told her, and Midna bit down on her lip in thought.

"Is that it? None of the others? Nothing about Red stars or the Moon or the Storm? Just the Wolf?"

Speechless, Rose almost nodded. At the last second, she changed the movement into a shake.

"No…no, he said…well, I'm not sure exactly, like I said, it didn't make a whole lot of sense…"

Midna was saved the effort of pressing further by the intercom. Quickly, she released her hold on Davros, who looked suddenly like he rather wanted to yell. Loudly.

_"Incoming transmission! Origin: Planet Earth!"_ ordered the Supreme Dalek. Davros glared at them, like this was somehow their fault. Midna shrugged innocently and Rose bit the inside of her cheek.

"Display!"

_"Send transmission to the Vault."_ Said the Supreme Dalek, and the screen that had shown the Reality Bomb's test flickered back to life. Davros turned from Rose and Midna to look at it. It was Martha. _"Continue to monitor."_Crucible_. Repeat: Can you hear me?"_

"I am speaking to the Dalek

"Put us through," Rose ordered Davros.

"It begins as Dalek Caan foretold," said Davros, grinning a really very ugly grin.

_"And into the children of time we go,"_ cackled Caan in response, _"…and one of them will die!"_

"Stop saying that!" snapped Rose irritably. "Jus' put us through!"

_"Rose! Where's the Doctor, do you know?"_ Apparently, the Daleks had acquiesced to her request.

"No," said Rose. "I thought he was with you!"

_"Change of plans. After you and Midna left, we used Jack's teleporter to get to UNIT headquarters in New York. I dunno where the Doctor is right now, but I'm in Germany."_

"Germany?" Rose repeated. "What're ya doin' in _Germany_?"

_"Long story. Are you all right?"_

"They are both powerless," said Davros, in full gloating mood now. Rose rolled her eyes, just itching to teleport to his side and make him see just how powerless she really was. She grimaced inwardly. But she _was_ powerless, wasn't she? "My prisoners," he waved a hand at them as though introducing them as particularly special and talented slaves. "State your intent."

Martha held up a tiny plastic box with blue felt inside, a chain hanging from one of the corners. Rose frowned. It looked familiar…

_"I've got the Osterhagen Key."_

Rose gasped, but before she could shout anything, Martha continued.

_"Leave this planet and its people alone, or I'll use it."_

"Explain," ordered Davros.

"Martha, don't! I know what it does! Don't use it!" Rose yelled desperately.

Martha flicked a sad glance at Rose, then looked back at Davros.

_"There's a chain of twenty-five nuclear warheads placed in strategic points beneath the Earth's crust. If I use the key, they detonate, and…the Earth gets ripped apart."_

"No!" Rose repeated, looking pleadingly at the Key in Martha's hand.

_"Rose, the Osterhagen Key is to be used if the suffering of the human race so great, so without hope…that this becomes the final option."_

"That's never an option!" Rose snarled, stunned that Martha Jones, of all people, was doing this.

No, she corrected herself. Not Martha Jones. Martha Milligan. Different universe, after all. She swallowed bitter tears. _'…so without hope…"_ Never again. Never. She'd sworn she would never let that happen. She wasn't going to fail in her own universe.

_"Don't argue with me, Rose,"_ Martha snapped, though not entirely unkindly.

"It's not what the Doctor would do…" Rose felt so helpless.

_"'Cos there's more than that,"_ Martha continued, choosing to ignore Rose's comment about the Doctor. Where _was_ he, anyway? _"Now, I reckon the Daleks need these twenty-seven planets, but what if it becomes twenty six?"_ she held up the Key again, pointedly. _"What happens then? Daleks?"_

She sounded triumphant already. Rose felt, rather than saw, Midna shake her head in disbelief. She wondered if she could feel whatever Martha was feeling over the comms.

_"Would you risk it?"_

"Ooh, she's good," Rose admitted grudgingly, recognizing the same spirit in this Martha as in all the others.

Another voice interrupted them, a Daleks', over the intercom.

_"Receiving transmission; internal."_

"Display!"

A second screen popped up next to the first, revealing Jack, Mickey, Sarah-Jane, an unfamiliar blonde, and…_no_…no way…

_"Jack Harkness, calling all Daleks, boys and girls! Are you receiving me? Don't send in your goons or I'll set this thing off,"_ he warned at the end.

"How did _he_ get here?" said Midna, perplexed.

"How did _she_?" Rose added, staring at her mum. "Oh my God…that's…that's my mum! And Mickey, and Sarah-Jane! I thought they were safe! But then…who's that?"

"That's Jenny," Midna explained shortly.

"Really?" Rose was startled. "But she's…blonde."

"So?"

"How's she…I mean, the Doctor's not, how can she be?"

Midna shrugged. "Maybe the progenation machine read his mind and knew he loved you, so it made her resemble both of you," she suggested frankly, ignoring the startled glare she received for that. "Rather creepy, actually."

Rose had to agree, somewhat.

"Jack, what are you doing?" Rose asked. Momentarily, Jack seemed too pleased to see her to actually reply.

_"I've got a warp star wired into the mainframe,"_ he said in a half-reassuring, half-warning tone. _"I break the shell, the entire _Crucible_ goes up."_

"Where did you get a warp star?" asked Rose, bemused. She's encountered only a couple of them in her travels.

_"From me,"_ said Sarah-Jane, stepping forward. _"We had no choice, we saw what happened to the prisoners."_

"Impossible," muttered Davros, moving closer to the screen. "That face…after all these years…"

_"Davros,"_ Sarah-Jane said, her voice barely above a whisper. She took another step forward, moving in front of Jack. _"Well, it's been quite a while. Sarah-Jane Smith,"_ she all but spat at him. _"Remember?"_

"Oh," said Davros, glee rising in his expression. "Oh, this is meant to be. The circle of time is closing; you were there on Scaro at the very beginning of my creation."

_"And I've learned how to fight since then. You let our friends go or this warp star gets opened!"_ agreed Jack, wrapping the chain around his fingers. _"Don't imagine I wouldn't."_

"I'll do it,"

"Now that's what I call a ransom!" Midna said, on the verge of laughter. Rose didn't reply. Her jaw was clenched; she stared determinedly away from everyone, avoiding eye contact for fear she'd lose it. "Rose?"

"And the prophecy unfolds," said Davros, turning around slowly.

"_And the rain of the Storm softly trembles on her lips as she is set free from her Cage forever…_" Dalek Caan sang, but Rose could barely hear him. . "_…seeing and calming the darkness, claiming the soul of the midnight sun…_"

This was what Davros had meant, before. His voice filtered in her mind, an echo of the real thing — _"There is another fate set in store for the Doctor. Caan has said that at the end of it all his soul will be bared to the world, and all will know his true face, his true name. Quite possibly, it is a fate far worse than death that Dalek Caan has seen for your precious Doctor."_

She understood, and for the first time since she had arrived on the _Crucible_, Rose was elated that the Doctor was not there with her. Seeing this, seeing everyone…it would destroy him, she knew.

Davros was speaking.

"…but this is the truth, Wolf. The Doctor takes ordinary people and he fashions them into weapons, as he has undoubtedly done with you. What has he done to you, valiant child?"

Rose's head snapped up, just slightly, to glower at Davros. Valiant child? It had to be a coincidence. He couldn't know. No one did. Just her and the Doctor, and that had already passed anyway, at Canary Wharf. Officially dead, even if she wasn't really. Right? Right.

"Behold, the children of time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks. He made this. What of you, Wolf?"

"He's jus' trying to help." Rose defended quietly, knowing still that there was no point. In several ways, Davros was right. If the Doctor were here…well, she was just grateful he wasn't.

"Already I have seen one sacrificed today for their beloved Doctor."

"Harriet Jones made her choice. It wasn't the Doctor's fault."

Davros hacked out a mocking laugh.

"No, child. The Doctor is at fault for simply existing. How many more? Just think…how many more have died in his name? The Doctor…the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not out of shame. When I see him, this will be my final victory. I have shown you, his dearest companion — his 'tamer' — of his true self. You protect him from all you can. Dare you protect him from himself?"

Rose raised her head high, looking at Davros unflinchingly. A strange thrill, like liquid fire, rushed in her veins, warm and so full of energy she felt ready to burst. Davros was wrong. The "Cage" was not her body; it never had been. The "Cage" had been herself, holding back for fear of who she could be; for fear that accepting meant giving in to something inhuman. But no more.

"Yes." Rose answered, her gaze hot on Davros.

_"Enough,"_ said the Supreme Dalek from wherever he was above them. _"Engage Defense zero-five."_

_"It's the _Crucible_ or the Earth."_ Martha said, moving back in her chair with the Key raised high.

_"Transmat engaged!"_ shouted Martha, but she was no longer on screen. She was on the _Crucible_, along with Jack, Mickey, Sarah-Jane, Jenny, and Rose's mum. They landed rather violently, Martha struggling against the transmat to roll on the floor; Jack helped her up.

"No!"

"Don't move, all of you!" said Rose.

"Stay still!" Midna added, almost at the same time.

"On your knees, all of you!" Davros ordered.

"Do as he says," said Midna, and Rose nodded encouragingly, her eyes wide. This wasn't supposed to happen. It wasn't supposed to be this way. They weren't all supposed to have landed on the _Crucible_, it wasn't fair.

As they slowly lowered to their knees, Rose avoiding any eye contact, Davros moved to face them.

"The final prophecy is nearly in place," he said. "The Doctor's children, all gathered here today. We are missing only the man himself. Supreme Dalek, the time has come!" Davros seemed beside himself, a shaking hand going to his forehead. "Detonate the Reality Bomb!"

_"Activate planetary alignment field!"_

"He will come," said Davros confidently. "The Doctor will come and witness the end of everything."

Now that the worst bit was over (although how she thought that that was the worst part when there was still more to come...), Rose bit her lip and hoped, for everyone's sake, that he was right. Davros laughed dementedly, looking rather overjoyed. It was disgusting. She could see Midna's lips curl in a silent snarl.

"Nothing can stop the detonation! NOTHING, and NO ONE!"

Rose had never seen someone evil so deliriously happy and faithfully prayed that once they were through with this she never would again.

A familiar grind-and-roar noise filled the room, and all of Rose's hopes at once became reality. It was here, it was impossible, and it was a big blue box.

The TARDIS had arrived.

_Don't half take his time, does he?_ thought Rose, slumping with relief into Midna, who grinned as an invisible breeze ruffled her hair.

* * *

Meh. I'm tired. 22 pgs (Word) in the last two days, most of it today. _(yawn)_


	10. Blue Silver

Read at your own peril. Seriously. Brain-thumper, this one is.

* * *

_Previously..._

A familiar grind-and-roar noise filled the room, and all of Rose's hopes at once became reality. It was here, it was impossible, and it was a big blue box.

The TARDIS had arrived.

Don't half take his time, does he? _thought Rose, slumping with relief into Midna, who grinned as an invisible breeze ruffled her hair._

**Blue Silver: Chapter Nine**

_Two hours earlier…_

"Think think, _think_! There must be a way to get aboard the Crucible!"

"I've got this," Jack said, holding up his wrist. The Doctor glared at the vortex manipulator thoughtfully.

"If I…the key should…yes, that could work…Jack, how did you fix it?"

"Why? So you can break it again?"

The Doctor shot him an exasperated look, like Jack had just dribbled on his shirt on purpose.

"Don't be so daft; I need to use it!"

"Why can't you just use it, then?"

"Captain!"

Jack shrugged, holding out the device for the Doctor to take. The Doctor whipped on his glasses and narrowed his eyes at the wristband.

"UNIT was working on a project for teleportation from scraps of technology salvaged from the Sontarans," Jack explained while the Doctor examined the device. "It wasn't finished. That was how Martha disappeared."

"Project Indigo…" muttered the Doctor as he looked up, his eyes sad. "Unfinished? Her atoms spread out across space…see what happens when you don't use a proper time machine? Well, that's just something else I'll have to try and fix, then. Anyway, the space-hopper?"

Jack rolled his eyes.

"I really wish you'd stop calling it that." Before the Doctor could defend himself, Jack continued abruptly, "My team and I were curious as to what UNIT was up to. Martha wasn't exactly ever very forthcoming but I had a few contacts with them back from the old days who still owed me a favor or two. Project Indigo has the same base codes as the Time Agency's vortex manipulators – namely, four and nine, just the coordinates I needed to get this baby working again."

The Doctor nodded frugally at his explanation, turning the manipulator over in his hands and studying it intently through his glasses. Jack wondered idly if the Doctor even needed those glasses.

"Yes, I think I can use that…" he muttered, then reached into his pocket and pulled out a familiar key.

"Incoming."

The Doctor and Jack looked up; General Sanchez had spoken up from his position at the door, a large gun poised at the ready. Dimly, they could hear the metallic intonations of the Daleks. Jack grabbed his own gun and prepared to join him, but the Doctor grasped his arm, halting him. Jack probably could have fought him off, but he didn't.

"Doctor?"

He had his tongue between his teeth and was poking at the manipulator with his sonic screwdriver, making Jack involuntarily wince.

The voices were getting closer. The General tensed.

"Whatever you're going to do, Doctor, you better do it now!"

"General, get back!" Jack ordered, feeling a little backward as he did so. Captain versus General…

Apparently, General Sanchez agreed.

"I can buy you the time, Captain, just hurry up!"

"You're coming with us!" Jack insisted. "Right, Doctor?"

The Doctor didn't answer. Jack recognized this mood. It was the same as it had been on Satellite Five, when he had gone ahead to hold off the Daleks while the Doctor prepared the device that would wipe out humanity; acceptance, resignation, but determination to see the final task through.

"Doctor?" Jack said again.

The General fired. Again, Jack attempted to break for the door and help out with his particle gun, but the Doctor grabbed his arm again. When Jack glared at him, the expression on the Doctor's face was one he'd never forget.

"I'm sorry."

Jack ignored him, firing the particle gun through the doorway at a Dalek that had just been about to get a clean shot at General Sanchez.

"Get back!" he tried again, firing and dodging a beam of light at the same time, the forgotten laser scorching the wall behind him harmlessly.

The General, sensing a fight in Jack, leapt up, knees cracking in his old age, and stood in the door, firing with abandon.

"NO!"

Out of ammo, General Sanchez dropped his gun and reached over to a panel on his right, pounding at the keys – which were, inconviently, only on the other side, as they had had only enough time to hide in the brig when the Daleks had first taken over the headquarters. The door slid shut just as Jack reached it. He punched at it in frustration, the General's screams ripping the through the air and at Jack's conscience.

"HA! Got it!" barked the Doctor in triumph. Jack glared at him. The Doctor didn't seem to notice, holding out the vortex manipulator for Jack to take. "Captain, take this and do something to make the Daleks kill you. When you come back, search the ship, got it?"

Jack nodded, though his anger refused to completely dissipate. He could hear the Daleks attempting to get through the door on the other side.

"What about you?"

"I've got this," said the Doctor, holding up a chain, to which was connected a mottled remnant of what had once been a TARDIS key. Wires poked out of it, a winding ball of a scraggly mess surrounding a wilted ball of metal, snaking up a silvery chain which the Doctor slipped around his neck. "Now go."

Jack looked at the solid granite door which had slid opened just a crack since the last time he'd looked at it. He scowled and nodded once, curtly.

"_Go_." The Doctor repeated, then disappeared in a bright flash of white light. Gritting his teeth, Jack backed up as the door finally opened and Daleks swarmed into the room. A shadow of the General's body could just be seen, his mouth still open in a silent scream.

Jack snapped the wrist strap to his arm and hit the button that would take him to the Crucible – assuming, of course, that the Doctor had set the coordinates already.

He had. Jack smirked sardonically at the nearest Dalek and aimed the particle gun. Not a second after he'd blown the metal top off the thing, he was shot by the red one. Pain lanced down his spine, black spots took over his vision, and he felt himself crumpling to the floor.

As soon as he was awake and alone, he jumped up and ran off, following the life signs detector up three miles of ventilation shaft to be met with the glorious sight of three women and Mickey Mouse.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

The TARDIS was in agony. Her telepathic field wove itself into his brain, ripping at it like someone grasping for something to hold onto during a free fall off a tall cliff. The Doctor gritted his teeth and shoved the pain away, trying to concentrate on the here and now.

The misshapen key around his neck was hot, burning through his clothes. Right. Temporal feedback. Hurriedly, he ripped off the chain, hissing at the scalding heat, and let it drop to the grating floor.

The TARDIS was being ripped apart. But why? How? The temporal trap he'd landed on in London must have completely lowered her defenses. Allowing anger to fuel his movements now, the Doctor hurried around the console, hitting buttons and flicking switches as he went.

The key should only have had temporal feedback if the only TARDIS it could get to existed in another time, which meant that in order to keep the TARDIS from destroying itself he had to dematerialize in a time outside of the one he'd jiggery-pokeried the key in and before he could even do that much he needed to stabilize the neutron flow from one end of the binary temporal coupling to the wire connected to the dematerialization unit…

Wait a minute. The neutron flow. It was overloading. _What?_

As he swiftly pressed a lever and ran over to the monitor to see what was outside, he tripped over something. He frowned. There shouldn't have been anything there to trip over, no upraised grating or…ah. Donna. So Rose and Midna hadn't gotten her out in time.

Before he could worry about this overmuch, the ship jerked. The Doctor was forced to grab tightly onto the console as he was nearly flung across the room, grunting as his arms practically ripped themselves from their sockets. He pulled himself up and yanked on the dematerialization lever, almost collapsing with relief when the central column burst to life, putting the overload to good power usage. They weren't going anywhere specific – he hadn't had time for that. He did, however, catch a glimpse of the Z-Neutrino energy core that could only have been in the Crucible. But what did _Daleks_ need with Z-Neutrino energy?

And was Rose all right? Was Midna keeping her safe, like she'd said she would? Where were they? Caught? Killed? Oh _Rassilon_, no. Not that.

Still, first things first. He had to get Donna to the infirmary and find out just how serious that huge gash across her forehead really was. As he knelt over her prone, pale form, he noticed that her chest wasn't moving. Frantically, he grabbed her wrist, feeling for a pulse. Blood continued to gush from the wound on her head, but he was too late.

Donna Noble was dead.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

She was blind, or being blinded. All she could see was bright golden light everywhere she turned.

Donna frowned. Where was she?

She tried to remember the last thing that had happened to her. There was something about Rose…the jump-thingy or whatchamacallit…the doors had closed – she was screaming, terrified – they opened again, briefly, and then she felt like she was in a free fall, her back flat on the TARDIS floor, blood rushing to her head, her eyes all but popping out under the pressure. She'd stumbled to her feet when the gravity holding her down had finally let her up, and then…and then…that was it.

Golden light. What the hell was the point of golden light, anyway? Was she dead? God, she hoped not. She never knew heaven could be so painfully blinding, at any rate. She did come to realize something, though:

Eternity was rather intimidating when it was looking you right in the face.

Whispers surrounded her like a soft summer wind. However, she could decipher none of them, for there were so many and they blended together like seamlessly horrific music.

"Where am I?" she asked, and was startled when she heard not her voice, but another of the whispers. "Am I dead? Is anyone here?"

Panicking now, she reached out, trying to find something – anything – to grasp a hold of. She thought she could feel something cool and solid pass briefly over her hand.

Abruptly, everything changed. Donna was spun around circles, hung upside down, and wrung dry. The golden light separated into little balls of different colors – every color, she thought – with the deepest of blacks separating them all. Donna looked at her outstretched hand, only to see a glimmer of bright crimson light.

"What the _hell_ is going on?"

"_Calm_," ordered an ethereal whisper that broke free from the others. When Donna's panic receded, she looked curiously at the bright ball of red and white swirly lights that was looking back at her with…her own face? Donna gasped and stumbled back.

"_Calm_," the thing ordered again, its voice firmer and, she realized now, resembling her own.

"Who are you?" Donna demanded.

"_You_."

The ball followed her steadily at eye-level as Donna took a few more steps back. Or, she reflected, perhaps she wasn't even moving at all, but moved instead in her mind, her imagination, because that was her automatic response.

"That's not possible," she tried to insist.

"_What is_?" Pseudo-Donna sounded wry.

"What are you?"

"_Your heart. The heart of the vortex. Home, once, to Bad Wolf. Bad Wolf is something else now, independent of me._"

"What?"

"_We are in danger, Donna Noble_."

The whispers around the two of them were growing louder, deeper, more urgent. They seemed to be trying to tell her something.

"Where am I?" she repeated, the only thing she could think of.

"_We are in the Core. We are home_."

"Home," Donna protested angrily, "is in Chiswick!"

The red light laughed. How the hell does light laugh?

"_Not you_," it clarified, "_your heart. And me_."

"I thought you said _you_ were my heart," said Donna, feeling ridiculous.

"_I am_."

"So we both are?"

"_We both are one_."

"One what?"

"_One individual_."

Donna glared.

"Are you trying to tell me I've got two hearts, and one of them is talking to me?"

The light laughed gleefully in rather childish triumph.

"_Yes._."

Donna snorted.

"Nope, sorry, not going with that one. I'm _human_, not Time Lord – or Lady, whatever – have been all my life."

"_There is a beginning to everything_."

"Not in this Donna, there isn't."

"_Will be_."

"If you think for one bloomin' second I'm gonna be anythin' like Mister Ego-central Doctor, you've got another thing comin'!"

"_Not the Doctor. Donna Noble_."

The whispers were painful now, though she could still only understand the one that was looking at her. A flash of memory lanced through her head.

_"You are the most important person in the whole of creation!"_

Rose. What did she have to do with this?

"_She foresaw everything_."

"She who?"

"_Bad Wolf_

Donna frowned. "Bad Wolf? But...I've heard that before! D'you mean...are you  
talking about Rose?"

"_Yes. Rose Tyler. The home. The cage. Bad Wolf remembers all. She, only some. Not this_."

"What d'you mean 'foresaw' everything? Foresaw what? She's only human!"

"_No. Not just human. Like you, but not. Important, but then not as important as you_."

"Don't be so daft!"

"_I am not. I am you_."

"I'm not–" her voice broke helplessly. "I'm not important."

"_Lies_,"the echo of her voice hissed angrily. "_You will carry the Legacy. You will be one of the mothers. Your heart and mine will join, and you will fulfill the prophecy_."

"What? What prophesy? What Legacy? What are you talking about?"

The whispers were so painful by this point that she could barely think. Her head pounded fiercely; nothing made sense, she could see nothing straight, understanding nothing _right_... Just then, another ball of light joined the first, this one a bright silver.

"_Donna_," said Martha's voice from the ball. "_Donna, listen to me. We need your help. The Daleks are working for the Master – remember, I told you about him? – and don't ask me how that happened, it's really complicated. But the Master wants Bad Wolf for himself. He's gonna destroy everything to get to it. I'm with the other children on the Crucible. Wake up, Donna, and tell the Doctor. Then help him. Help us_."

Donna gaped, having not understood a word. The Master...wasn't that the one Martha had told her about when they were keeping out of the Doctor's way on the TARDIS? And the Daleks? What did those giant pepper pots have to do with her current problem? And 'with the other children'? What could Martha possibly mean by that? Was this even Martha?

She was so confused.

Another silver ball joined the party, this one so much brighter than the one impersonating Martha that it hurt to look at it. Flashes of gold could be seen from somewhere within, and all around the ball hung dark, looming clouds that skittered frightfully across the surface, never staying for long yet neither leaving, either. Dimly, Donna recognized the very vague shape of the Doctor's face in this one. The only thing unfamiliar about it was that a few tears had escaped his dark, brimming eyes and had tracked down his face. The Doctor she knew never cried, no matter how down he was feeling. Stupid male pride and all that.

"_Donna_," he choked, and Donna frowned again. What was wrong? What was going on? "_Come back. Come on, don't do this. Remember the times we had? The best. The _best_. Don't leave now, we've got so much more to do. You haven't even meant Rose properly, y'know? That's something you can't miss out on. Come back, Donna, please, _come back." His voice cracked.

If possible, she was even more confused than before.

"_The thoughts of the echoes of their subconscious, thoughts they are not capable of thinking on their own_," explained the red ball as the other two drifted off into the darkness. "_The Doctor is holding your dead body in his arms, and Martha is calling for help_."

"So I _am_ dead, then?" said Donna grimly. The red ball didn't reply. "What d'you mean, Martha's calling for help? What can I do?"

"_Go back_," the voice that was so like her own commanded softly. "_Go back and finish what you started. Regenerate_."

"Regenerate?" Donna repeated dubiously. "What's that?"

"_A Time Lord's way of cheating death_."

"Well, that settles it, then. I can't do it. I'm not a Time Lord."

"_Not yet, no_."

"What do you mean?"

"_Regenerate, and you will be_."

Be a Time Lord? Was that was she wanted? Hell no. One look at the Doctor and you could tell what kind of a life the life of a Time Lord could be. Like hell she would put herself through that unless she had another choice about it.

"What if I don't want to be?"

"_Then you will die, and the multiverse with you_/"

So much for choices.

"What makes you think I'm so bloody important? I'm a - I'm a _temp_, not some bloody savior!"

"_You need only for someone to look_."

"What? What's that s'posed to mean?"

"_Your greatness is only seen when the right people are there to see it, because otherwise you will not let it show. You will not believe, and you will not save them_."

Save who from what? She wanted to scream.

"But what can I _do_?"

"_Believe_."

"'Believe'?" Donna deadpanned doubtfully, staring at the orb of light floating before her. "That's it? Just...'believe'? Believe in what?"

"_Yourself_."

Donna gasped in pain as everything started to make sense. Her body burned (wasn't her body dead?) and ached all over. Everything was confusion, nothing made sense, yet everything did, everything did, and she was burning; oh, she was burning, and the Doctor had better realize it, or he would burn too…Oh, it hurt, it hurt, it was eating her alive from the inside out, _burning_...

She was nothing, she was everything; she was the universe and she was time. She melded with the people of all timelines, head pounding in synchronization with the pulsating beat of would-be paradoxes and anomalies and things she shouldn't ever have to begin to understand. Above all, she _burned_.

Donna burst into flame.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Are you breathing?

…No.

Why?

Can't.

Why?

Dying.

Why?

No one is looking.

_So look for yourself._

She gasped, but no sound left her lips. She tried to move, but she couldn't even open her eyes. Everything hurt, so badly, and she wanted nothing more than to creep silently into the blackness again, forever forgotten. But she couldn't do that, because someone needed her, or at least needed some part of her; something that needed to be seen to be believed.

Even the thoughts in her own head didn't make sense anymore.

And who the hell was _singing_ at a time like this?

Sensible or not, someone needed her and who was she but one to oblige? Well, she supposed it depended on who exactly was doing the needing, but something told her it didn't matter who it was, just that it was. She would have frowned except that she still couldn't move.

The Someone-Who-Needed-Her-Or-Something-Like-That (just Someone for short) was a confusion of the senses all by herself. Wait…'her'? How did she know it was a "she"? Did it matter? The hot and the cold and the rage and the liquid stubbornness that made her very bones ache to the quaking core certainly didn't seem to think so.

Now, why could she be feeling all that?

And who was she, anyway? What was her name? What did she do for a living? Did she have family? Kids? No, too young for kids, she sensed. Siblings, then? Friends?

Probably not. She felt too empty. What was that emptiness? Surely she was alive – she was capable of thinking, at least – so her innards were relatively intact, certainly not gone missing. The pain would be different if she hadn't any insides, she was sure. What pain was this? What was this cold, hollow sorrow that drenched her warm flesh and blood in ice?

Why could she remember nothing? What was a man (or a woman), she thought, but a sum of his memories? She was sure that was a quote from someone. Probably someone important. Definitely not her. Especially since she couldn't remember anything. If she couldn't remember anything, she certainly was nothing. For what being could live and yet have no recollection of having lived before? She wasn't a newborn, no, but she may as well be.

She tried to open her eyes again, if only to get her mind off the dark path toward which her thoughts were turning. It was no use; not even a crowbar would get them budge, unless it was actually shoved into her eye, in which case she'd be blind anyway and then the point was beyond moot. Ow. Just thinking about that hurt.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

Argh! Stupid singing. So annoying. What was it for again? No idea. She tried to ignore it, but something flickered in the back of her mind, like candlelight out of the corner of her eye. A glimmer of something. A memory? No. A picture. A picture within a memory.

She held the phantom photocopy in her hands, clutching it so tightly her hands balled into fists and her palms got cut and hurt like crazy. When she realized the phantom presence wasn't at all real, she allowed her hands to relax enough to flip the picture in her memory over to the back.

_June 16_, it read in messily elegant writing remarkably not crumpled from her unceremonious (if imaginary) fist-making; _Little baby Midna Noble Black in the arms of her new mother._

Midna. It sounded vaguely familiar, she supposed. Was that name her own? Yes, it must be. It sounded right, and the woman lying on the bed holding the newborn looked familiar. Too familiar. So familiar it hurt. Auburn hair with black and blond streaks. Deep hazel eyes. Pink cheeks soaked with sweat and tears after her painful ordeal. Strong jaw, high cheekbones, long nose. Tall, she knew even though the woman was lying down in the picture, about as tall Midna's grandfather, and just as scrawny. How she knew how tall and skinny her grandfather was when she didn't even know the first thing about her own appearance, Midna didn't know.

A man stood next to the bed with one hand on the woman's shoulder, beaming so brightly and proudly into the camera Midna was surprised she wasn't blind from looking at it. This man had hair the color of dirty dishwater (rather like her own, really, and she nearly jumped for joy at this newest insight into herself) that shone gold in the hospital's stark lighting. He also had calming sea-green eyes that bathed her in warmth from just a glance. The shimmering hair was neatly combed back, eyes shining ecstatically. It was Alonzo Nicholsen Black, she somehow knew, the middle name taken after the man's father. The woman was Natalya, and that was all. Just Natalya. No mysterious maiden name from the past, rarely taking the 'Black' surname, and better known as Mom, in all actuality.

Mom. Dad.

The pain hit hard. Had she been standing or remotely even aware of her own bodily functions, Midna was sure her knees would have buckled under the strain of it.

Then the picture in her mind – her memories – changed, and she was shocked from the haze of her pain to clarity of her past.

The hospital room became a meadow with tall, bright blue grass and a deep green sky with two dancing silver suns shining high and near the west, deep black and purple and orange clouds escorting them to their setting. Around the meadow was a forest of crimson pine, and just beyond the forest could be seen the dimly pink-and-gold outline of the tallest snow-capped mountains Midna was sure could ever exist anywhere. The thin white cot became a long brown table surrounded by gray plastic chairs. The couple and their baby – Midna and her parents – morphed into a great big crowd of many people, none of them sitting, all of them standing around the meadow doing something.

Midna recognized herself (somehow) wrestling with a little black boy in the taller parts of the grass. Her parents were clinging together in the shade of a pine tree, snogging, and she mentally grimaced in disgust. Two blondes and a handsome dark-haired man (sounded like the beginning of a really bad joke, thought Midna wryly) were laughing raucously at a tall man in pinstripes, who looked absolutely gobsmacked with globs of whipped cream dripping, frozen in the photo, down his face. Another blonde, obviously much older than the other two, had a hand raised threateningly at the pinstriped man, an irate expression on her face. A few feet away, a dark-skinned man and woman were chatting with another dark-haired man who'd grown himself a few ragged, graying whiskers on his cheeks and who was holding the hand of the woman beside him. A redhead and some other man with the same gleaming dirty-dishwater hair as Dad sat cross-legged in the grass, apparently just looking at each other. A woman with graying hair that might have once been brown and a mischievous glint in her eyes was urging a weird little metal dog toward Midna's parents in an apparent attempt to interrupt and embarrass them. A blur of white, pink, and yellow shot across one part of the photo, a vaguely girly figure flying toward little Midna and the black boy she was playing with.

The table was filled with food of all kinds, from multi-layered cakes to pizza and mashed potatoes to pot roast. It was as if someone had combined a birthday party with a Thanksgiving feast and the festive cheer of Christmas dinner in some bizarre combination that resembled something like a family get-together...on someplace that definitely wasn't Earth. In the picture, most of the food had already been eaten, half-empty plates and filthy plates and completely full plates littering the surface like litter in the streets of the part of London everyone would rather avoid thinking about. And, of course, whatever had had the whipped cream that was smudging down Pinstripe's face.

Sixteen people. Seventeen, including the tin dog.

Family.

Love.

Loss.

Pain.

Tears blotched out the picture now, until Midna could no longer make out anything on it. It took her a moment to recognize that it was her memory crying and not herself. She, after all, could not move even if she had wanted to.

So many whispers, such echoes of time; they raced in her mind, dancing gloriously, hideously, the voices of everyone in that picture, of everyone who had ever mattered. Her memory self turned the picture over and the back read, in the same messy scrawl as the last one: _The Family_. This time, she saw the handwriting as her own, and every memory she'd ever had of anything started coming back all at once, clearer and sharper than ever.

She wasn't human, not like she had thought, or had wanted to think. Half-human maybe, but that was just making things confusing. Her grandparents on her father's side were both different species of alien, and one grandparent from her mother's side was definitely alien, and the other was...well, human, but not quite, exactly. Almost all of her great-grandparents were completely human, so she didn't have purely undiluted alien blood. That, of course, also depended on one's defintion of "alien", but...

Everything that hurt before hurt worse now. Honestly, it was simpler just to say that she wasn't human and leave it at that, because, quite frankly, Midna Noble Black was something the universe had never seen before.

But what else was new?

As her memories returned, she noticed everything that she should have noticed even before everything had gone wrong, all the things that pointed to her blatant _inhumanity_, beyond the physical stuff and her blood relatives.

Her first clue should have been the way everyone at school avoided her. Or maybe it was that she never went to visit any doctor but one that was a friend of the family's – an aunt, in fact, though not by blood. Maybe the hints came in how she excelled at every sport, aced every class, and ached for the weekends (which would be extended, sometimes, into months) she would spend traveling with her grandparents, experiencing things she could never tell anything about to another living soul outside of her family. Maybe it was in the fact that she was allergic to aspirin and no one in their right minds would be allergic to _aspirin_ of all things.

Perhaps she should have known she was different from everyone and thing when she realized that the shadows of whispers and feelings in the pit of her stomach were not her own. Maybe she should have known that when her insides did double flops before her first kiss it wasn't because she was just that extra bit more nervous. Perhaps it was whenever somebody seemed to see right through her and it hadn't been only her own indifference she was feeling. Maybe it was even that the jealousy anyone felt over everything she could do that they could not it wasn't just that Midna was pitying herself for the friends she could never have because she was different.

Oh, it was fine when she was younger, because no one cares when the young act odd because the young are odd anyway. But then she went to high school and was thrust into a reality her upbringing couldn't face.

Her first love threw that fact right in her face. After that, she'd sworn she would never love again. She took all the malice of everyone and let it fuel everything she herself had had. Her parents grew afraid as she grew in strength and she started to do things abnormal even for a family such as theirs. She was telekinetic, telepathic, empathic, even psychic, seeing visions of the future mere seconds before they actually happened and so forever experiencing a future no one else could see, constantly living out of sync with the rest of the universe; different, extraodinary, and altogether useless in a world that required neither her nor her abilities. She grew angry and bitter because she couldn't handle it, couldn't understand it; no one could. Her grandfather tried to help her, but even a legendary man such as he couldn't stand up to Midna's growing powers.

Then she met someone she thought _could_ understand, someone who seemed to love her right from the start and whom she had to, despite her sworn oaths not to, love back. She trusted him implicitly, so much so that she never ever questioned him on anything, never thought that what he was saying could have been different in reality, never thought that the things he said - sickening, horrifying things - weren't the truth.

It was only a few months after she met him that cousin Anastasia (or Annie, as everyone had called her) was captured, tortured and dissected by Torchwood, all because of what she was. Two hearts, ages-old father; what sane scientist could pass it up? But then Annie's parents were taken, and then her grandfather, because he was a hero, and then his wife, because she loved him and she was a hero too, and then Mom, because she loved them, and then Dad, because he loved her; and so on, everyone dying around her because she was too young and helpless and stupid to stop it. All of them, everyone that had ever mattered, destroyed, utterly, not just by Torchwood, but by themselves. Someone had interfered (Midna had been too young to realize the importance of finding out who) and soon the family was turning against each other, split apart and dying, seething with rage and betrayal and ripped to pieces by agony, self-loathing and brainwashing. Midna, of course, had plunged right into the middle of it all; she was, in fact, the catalyst.

Everything had always been her fault, right from the very beginning.

That was how the Valeyard and the Master worked. And, despite all her power, all her abilities and strength and wonder and glory, it was her own family that tore her apart in the end, for they were everything. They were all that mattered, and when they were gone, nothing mattered. Only Midna was left, because she was, very suddenly, "important". She was needed and necessary. She was _chosen_, and she was royally pissed off. She trapped the Valeyard and the Master in the Void, following only after she had reduced the rest of the multiverse to ash and set it to birth itself again.

In their insanity, both the Valeyard and the Master were wise. They were aware of the balance, and through the Valeyard, of course they knew about her, about what she could do. One little tip-off and she was suddenly a ten-ton hammer on a scale that held on the other side of it a tiny pouch of wheat. Chaos was the last thing anyone needed, so Midna fixed everything and got rid of her own self so it wouldn't happen again. But then the Valeyard found a way to escape and took the Master with him. They hid themselves in a remote universe and shoddily repaired the holes they'd left in the defenses around the Void on their way out. Terrified of leaving her confines, Midna did nothing for perhaps far too long, long enough for the evil duo to gain a foothold in the multiverse. Long enough for them to form a plan together, a plan she still figured out.

How the Valeyard thought he could survive it, Midna had had no idea at that time. It was possible he was just playing to his past. Maybe he would even go so far as to succeed, despite everything. It would be so like him, to defy the rules of that thing that made everything tick.

It was this thought that gave Midna the motivation to leave, to rejoin the physical world and do everything she could to, yet again, to restore balance before something set it off again. Next time, if or when it happened, she wouldn't have the powers to fix it. No one would, for that matter. Not even a virtual goddess would be able to pick up after that kind of a mess. Therefore, there was only one option: take away the threat, as if it had never even existed. Save the Valeyard before he was the Valeyard. Give him something that could save him, the only thing – the only one – who could save him.

Paradox upon paradox upon paradox threatened to undermine Midna, of course. But she knew one thing no one else did, something that only she, having been put in the right circumstances at the right times in just the right places, could possibly know: natural paradoxes that were and had always been meant to be would do no harm. After all, the multiverse hung in a precarious balance: love and hatred, pain and pleasure, happiness and sorrow, good and evil, dark and light…terrible, all-destroying paradoxes and natural, healthy ones. There were plenty of things in between all of that, of course (what were the scales made of? what supported them? what measured them? what kept the chains from snapping altogether? how could the good paradoxes counteract the bad paradoxes when the bad ones supposedly could not exist?), but the gist of it was…Midna's paradox was applicable because if it wasn't, everything would be thrown off. That would just be a paradox in and of itself, of course, since there were obviously times that that hadn't been so, and imbalance would affect the time vortex as well as the fabric of space.

Bleh. So convoluted, her life.

And so, perhaps the Valeyard would never exist at all, but for only in memory, like the Year That Never Was or...just like the _Foundation_. The _Foundation_ which, Midna realized now, far too late, had been replicated by her own agonizing soul into a universe far too like it for her comfort. It was, however, for the same reason that she didn't like its closeness that its closeness would aid her. The Valeyard could ordinarily simply be killed (a last resort, in her opinion), but he was from the _Foundation_ - one of three survivors - and this new universe was like _Foundation 2.0_, so he would be accepted into the laws of this universe as he would have been back home. Therefore, he would not be exempt from the rules of any multiverse like he had simply traversed the Void and met or killed an alternate past-him or helped out an alternately future him-him, which left her free to interefere as she pleased as well. She hoped, however, that the Valeyard would eventually realize all of this for himself and see that he was fighting a losing battle - a losing battle in which, on some level, she believed, he actually _wanted_ to lose.

Her body throbbed in protest to her avid thinking.

This, of course, still left the problem of the Master, but without the Valeyard at his side...well, he was easy enough to handle. She hoped.

Sometimes she wished she were just a little more human than she was. Maybe then she wouldn't be allergic to aspirin.

Someone-Who-Needed-Her-Or-Something-Like-That was talking now. Who was that, anyway? And why could Midna hear her all of a sudden?

Ah. Of course. Someone who needed her. Or something like that. Someone who needed her in order to save _him_. Because she didn't understand yet, did she? Well, Midna could hardly be blamed for that; she would have explained it to Rose a hell of a lot better if she had actually known what was going on herself.

Midna felt her muscles twitch, just slightly, and became aware, yet again, of an aching pain all over her body, in places she never knew could ache the way they were. Her lips twisted slowly into a frown.

Midna needed Rose to save the Doctor and, later, his offshoot the Valeyard, so he wouldn't grow up to be worst evil in the universe for some God-be-damned (likely self-pitying) reason. _But_, Rose needed saving first. Picky, much? What did she need saving for, anyway? What was –? …Oh. _Oh._ Shit. That complicated things a bit.

Like things had _needed_ anymore complicating?

"On the contrary, my master was once very good friends with your Doctor. It was only when he was driven mad by the vortex that he saw the error of his ways."

She grimaced, forcing energy into her muscles. Of course the bastard would team up with these abominations, why _wouldn't_ he?

"So your master followed a madman? And here I thought we were up against something intelligent."

Midna had to snicker at that. In her head only, unfortunately. She was still fighting through the pain that rippled through her stomach and outward in waves that threatened to knock her back under. What the hell had she eaten last night?

"And who is 'we', Rose Tyler? Who stands with you now?"

Cue me, thought Midna dryly, gritting her teeth and pushing forth with everything she had, concentrating on the feel of Rose's anger and confusion and compassion and, soon enough, worry. Rose's innate stubbornness helped, too, Midna had to admit to herself.

"I do."

She couldn't believe she managed to say anything at all, let alone without sounding like a frog that had swallowed a toad that'd had a horse for its midnight snack. Ooh…midnight, she liked that. Eternal Midnight, that was her. Child of Contradiction; Chaos. Oh, she loved it.

"And I'm not alone. There are many who stand by her."

And that was _so_ true. If only the Doctor would get his slow, lazy ass over here, everything would be just peachy.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

He could feel it, and it didn't make any sense. Still, the telepathic field was undeniable, much as he wanted to pretend it was impossible (which it was), and it was steadily growing besides. Bewildered, he gently lowered Donna's head back to the grating and took a few steps back, staring at her like maggots had already begun to infest her stiff corpse.

Worse, her pallid skin was beginning to glow from within.

"It can't be…" the Doctor murmured, barely even aware of doing so.

Donna burst into flame before his eyes just to prove him wrong, the Doctor was sure of it.

Shielding his eyes and giving up on understanding what was going on, he waited until the fire faded before rushing to Donna's side.Her face remained unchanged apart from a distinct lack of a life-threatening cut on the forehead.  
Hardly breathing, the Doctor brought a hand to Donna's wrist, which felt neither warm nor cool to his trembling fingers, and felt for a pulse. Thready, but undoubtedly there, the double beat pulsed rhythmically in defiance of all things natural.

The Doctor sat back on his heels, completely at a loss.

"Hey, Dumbo," Donna greeted weakly. The Doctor jumped. Her eyes fluttered open slowly, taking in his befuddled appearance with apparent amusement.

"Painful, that," she whispered, closing her eyes again briefly. "How d'you stand it?"

The Doctor just stared.

Donna snorted at his lack of response and forced herself up on her elbows. This got him moving, insisting she lay back down, but Donna protested, saying that if she lay at his feet like a useless cadaver for one second longer she was going to slap him to show him just how useful she could be. The Doctor wisely acquiesced and deigned instead to help her stand before he lived to regret it.

"You…you…" he tried to start as she successfully wobbled over to the jumpseat and collapsed in it like she'd just had a long day at work. "You just…you…"

He opened and closed his mouth a few more times until, at Donna's raised eyebrow, he decided to stuff it.

"I regenerated," Donna finished for him, deadpan.

"But…but…but…"

"How?" Donna offered. The Doctor nodded helplessly. Donna smiled, reached over, and patted the console fondly. The rotor was still going. "The TARDIS," she explained, "is an amazing machine, didja know that?"

The Doctor nodded, not knowing what else he could do. Besides, he quite agreed.

"Besides gettin' into everyone's heads translating languages and all that, she takes an imprint of everyone to have ever been given one of her keys. Ingenius, really."

"Imprint?" the Doctor repeated, leaning on the console across from her, feeling a little more coherent now that he accepted the fact that he really didn't know everything.

"That's what I _said_, now let me finish!" snapped Donna, and the Doctor nearly quailed. "_Anyway_, the TARDIS takes these…echoes, I guess, a tiny little trace of subconscious minds, and files it away in her heart," she patted the console again, and an image of golden light and a game station drifted on the surface of the Doctor's mind. "Sweet, but useless. Until I came along, of course."

"What?" He was still only capable of stringing up one word at a time.

"The imprints stabilize the changes the TARDIS had to make in me to keep me alive," she said simply, as though it were obvious.

"Changes?"

Donna rolled her eyes.

"Two hearts, unless you didn't notice? Really now, Doctor, _keep up_. As I was saying…none of this would have happened if, say, Martha had been trapped in here instead of me. But because it was me, it worked."

"And why is that?"

Wow, he managed to get through _four_ words this time, Donna thought to herself with a smug grin. She was _so_ enjoying this.

"Because I'm me." The Doctor started to retort, just as she knew she would, but she cut him off, "I'm built for it. It's like I was _meant_ to be a Time Lady all along."

"Why?" The Doctor asked. He looked pathetically cute when he was this confused, she decided.

Donna paused dramatically, letting the silence hang. When the Doctor gave her a frustrated glare, she smirked.

"Bad Wolf."

The Doctor's face fell slack.

Donna hurried to explain before he assumed too many things. It was important that he understood properly.

"Mostly, anyway. Bad Wolf was just an entity that lived inside the time vortex for a while. When Rose opened the TARDIS and looked into its heart – the TARDIS told me all about that, by the way – Bad Wolf _became_ her, leaving the vortex empty. But for the second that Rose was part of all four – herself, Bad Wolf, the TARDIS, and the time vortex – her presence changed _everything_, decoding and re-coding the structure that made all of them, making them something different under the same name. She's human, but with a few perks. Bad Wolf _is_ her (great girlfriend, by the way, don't envy you that).

"The time vortex is more in flux than ever, so it's easier to change and rewrite timelines than before. The TARDIS…well, the TARDIS was left empty. Rose was _there_, fully, not just traces of her subconscious, but _her_, and the TARDIS basically couldn't stand it when she...retreated." Here, Donna's voice lowered softly, her smugness fading. Rose's entrapment in the alternate universe, she knew, was no laughing matter. "Part of the TARDIS's heart escaped right after you saved Rose and went looking for her, but since she was with you and the TARDIS herself she was impossible to find; the different combinations of temporal energy completely got it confused. When Rose...I mean, when she..._got stuck_ in the other universe, that tiny little part gave in and gave up and looked for a replacement. Hence, me. I'm _special_." The smugness returned by the end of Donna's explanation.

The Doctor blinked. Donna realized with a start that that'd been the longest she had ever talked without exploding into fits of fury. She laughed inwardly at the mental image.

But comprehension was starting to dawn in those dark eyes, a light lit that hadn't been before.

"The Huon particles," he murmured, almost to himself. He straightened, his eyes wild, looking at Donna like she wasn't really there. "You came to the TARDIS. And then you found me again. Your grandad, your _car_," he pointed at her, gesturing with his hands. "Donna, your _car_ – you parked your car right where the TARDIS was goin' to land! That's not a coincidence…"

He turned away with a sound that was halfway between a groan of frustration and a shout of revelation, running hs fingers through his already messy hair to make it worse. He put his fingers over his temples and face.

"I must be blind…something has been drawing us together for such a long time –"

Donna frowned, trying not to feel scared. "But…but that's…This is just the TARDIS…just the TARDIS being lonely, yeah? I thought…but you're talking…like destiny. There's no such thing! Is there?"

The Doctor didn't answer, taking his hands off his own face to run through his hair again, eyes wide. "But it's still not finished," he said, looking confused again. "The pattern's not complete. The strands are still drawing together, 'cos something's got lost. But heading for what?"

She could see what he meant, now, could see the strands he spoke of, the not-quite tangible golden strings that hovered just out of reach, connecting slowly together by some invisible force. "Doctor?"

He looked at her, suddenly, _really_ looking at her. He took one of her hands in his.

"Donna, you've got two hearts," he said, like she didn't already know.

"I noticed that, thanks," she said, trying not to notice the trembling in her voice.

"You know what that means?"

Donna nodded and looked up and into his eyes bravely, like this was just another perk of their travels.

Who was she kidding?

"I'm a Time Lady."

"Yeah," he nodded. "And…you were always gonna be one."

"Really? Like…destiny?"

He hesitated, and she thought she understood why. What was destiny when she could _feel_ them? - The timelines around them, infinite and yet somehow limited, all of them ending eventually and yet each of them stretching on for eternity. Shadows of images she couldn't quite see shifted in the back of her eyes, and she knew instinctively that if she closed them she'd see the shadows more clearly but would likely still make little sense of them. Time was in flux, she remembered saying in her short spiel to the Doctor minutes earlier. Even more after Rose looked into it. None of the timelines were certain, she knew. It could change in much less than a second, become solid only in the present, faded in the past. The future wasn't set in stone, and the past technically wasn't, either, depending on the timeline you were going by.

No fate. No destiny. No nonsense.

But nothing made sense unless it was explained by that. It was like ancient mythology, she supposed, how the Greeks and the Romans had their gods to blame everything on when their limited science failed them.

Was this any different? What was really out there, if anything? What made any of this possible (or impossible, depending on your point view)? What made everything _work_

"Solid timeline," he corrected, as she knew he would. Her brain seemed to work a lot faster now than it had before, on different levels and deeper depths than she had ever thought her puny little mind could. Interesting. Was she going to turn into a braniac geek like him, now? She shuddered, sincerely hoping not.

Carefully, as though afraid she might break if he moved too quickly, he pulled her into his arms, and Donna sank into his comforting embrace gratefully, allowing a few tears to come at last. Those few, of course, gave way to many, until they were both sitting on the jumpseat and she was sobbing into his pinstriped shoulder, probably ruining the suit in the process.

She wasn't just any Time Lady, she knew. She was part-human, too. And that made everything so much worse, because humans went into the extremes of things and Time Lords didn't. She was being torn in two, almost literally, by two completely opposite forces of nature found deep in her very blood. She didn't know if she could survive that.

**XxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxX**

Donna must have fallen asleep at some point, because she woke groggily an indeterminable amount of time later to the Doctor prodding at her gently, telling her that the TARDIS had landed. She grimaced, thinking what a mess she had to look, then sat up and rubbed at a crick in her neck she'd gotten from sleeping on his bony shoulder. Honestly, hug the man and you really _do_ get a papercut.

Then her head turned fast enough she had rub her neck again from whiplash. The TARDIS doors burst open, and she and the Doctor leapt to their feet. His face was pale, staring at the figure in the doorway like he was seeing a ghost. Donna was about to say something, but the mysterious man in the door beat her to it.

"Hello, Doctor."

The Doctor smiled a grim smile and stepped forward, his eyes flashing protectively as Donna made a small movement behind him.

"Long time no see."

"Not long enough," said the Doctor quietly.

No. Never long enough.

* * *

Wow...that one kinda got away from me. Started with _two hours earlier_ and somehow ended before it was supposed to. I haven't even gotten back to the present yet. Ah well.

Enjoy? Sort of an interlude thing with a teensy cliffie at the end that explains pretty much everything this story's been leading up to, if you know where to look for it.

My head hurts...


	11. The Valeyard

**The Valeyard: Chapter Ten**

"You shouldn't be here."

"Perhaps."

The mysterious man seemed content to wait for the Doctor to make conversation. Donna looked back and forth between them, worried. The man was middle-aged and dignified, with short-cropped dark hair. The rest of him was swathed in black robes of an origin Donna could not recognize and his hands were folded neatly behind him. There was something ancient in his eyes that reminded her of the Doctor, who watched the man guardedly.

"You died."

"Did I?" The man seemed somewhat amused.

"You were destroyed by the feedback of the particle dissimilator; you were trapped within the Matrix with the Master."

Donna jerked involuntarily at the name. She hadn't understood a word the Doctor had just said, but she understood that the Master should be kablooey. Was this guy friends with the Master? Odd choice in friends, that. Dead people probably didn't make for a very talkative companionship.

"Was I?"

The Doctor's eyes narrowed; Donna recognized this as the "Storm" part of him.

"How did you get here?"

"I hardly see how it matters."

"How did you get here?" The Doctor repeated harshly.

The man sighed a long-suffering sigh.

"Same way you did. TARDIS."

"Impossible."

"Is it?"

Donna shook her head. These two were impossible. Couldn't they just spit it out and be done with it? She opened her mouth to tell them as much, then thought better of it.

"Doctor," she said quietly, nudging the Time Lord in the side with an elbow. He didn't look at her, but she guessed he was listening. "Who is he?"

There was silence for a moment. The man still appeared amused.

"He's me." The Doctor said grimly.

"What? Like, from the future?"

"Yes."

His short answers were getting to her, now. Normally he rambled off at ninety miles an hour, but this…he was deathly calm, was what he was, and it was entirely unnerving.

"You will lose," the man declared confidently, though Donna had no idea what he was talking about. Lose _what_? "You will lose everything, and reality will be mine for the taking."

"What reality?" the Doctor snapped. "Unless you've got a paradox machine handy…"

The man laughed sharply, unpleasantly.

"Paradox? No, no, Doctor, you don't understand. This is meant to be. It was always meant to be."

"Says who?"

"Bad Wolf."

The Doctor just glared at himself for a moment. Donna was confused all over again.

"How do you know about that?"

"I know everything about that."

"How?"

The man shrugged. "I think I'd rather not give it away. _Spoilers_, after all."

Donna flinched a little. Was this really the Doctor? It couldn't be. This bastard was...someone else. The Master himself, maybe.

"But I will tell you that all of this is so I can have Bad Wolf for myself."

"What do you want with Rose?" The Doctor's voice was more dangerous now than she'd ever heard it, and Donna very nearly smiled.

"'Rose'?" The man sounded vaguely surprised, like he didn't recognize the name. Definitely not the Doctor then, future him or no. "_Oh_, you speak of the _host_? Hardly. I'm after Bad Wolf itself. Imagine, Doctor. You'll be a _god_ in your future. How does that feel?"

"'A god'?" The Doctor appeared completely baffled. "A _god_ - what do you mean a 'god'? What are you talking about?"

"It's simple. The Reality Bomb will destroy everything, including the host's body, but _nothing_ can destroy Bad Wolf. It will be free for the taking."

"You can't do that!"

The man smiled a venomous, bitter smile. "Watch me."

"You can't!"

_But the Master wants Bad Wolf for himself. He's gonna destroy everything to get to it._

The Master wanted Bad Wolf. Donna swallowed, trying to figure things out. The Doctor had said that this was him, from the future, but that was impossible. There had to be some Time Lord-y thing against that. In fact, she was sure of it. She could _see_ it, the timelines colliding, merging, coaslescing into something new, something different, something...mutant. She wrinkled her nose in disgust. Was this the Master, then? Did the Doctor somehow become the Master in the future? Lose his memory? Lose the memories he had of this moment? Or did he just go insane? Become ill? Tried and failed to behead himself?

She didn't know. Nothing _fit_. That, she found, was rather frustrating.

"Who are you?" she asked the man directly, and for the first time she had his full, focused attention. It was frightening.

"The stuff of nightmares," he hissed. One of her hearts may have jumped a beat, but Donna refused to react, refused to be intimidated. Freakin' git. What right did he have, going about disentegrating everything in existence? So irate was she that she didn't even see the Doctor's arm moving until her hand was safely clenched in his. The other man didn't seem to care, or notice. "I am the Valeyard —"

"The Boneyard, more like," the Doctor muttered under his breath so only Donna could hear. Donna snorted loudly, but was ignored.

" — the prosecutor and the judge. I am —"

"A right arsehole," Donna nodded, finishing for him. The Doctor's grip tightened abruptly, warningly. She turned to him and said, "Told ya to lay off on the chips."

The Doctor shook his head, not amused in the least.

The Valeyard bared his teeth.

_"Bad Wolf will howl in the night to the sun's rays of Vigor, howl in the night to the Storm and his rage, howl in the night to the darkest side of the shining Moon, howl in the night to the learned court's soul, howl in the night to save all who need saving, howl in the night to the Howling itself, howl in the night to the Eternal granting it the same — Bad Wolf will live on, eternal, Eternal Midnight."_

Donna rose her eyebrows. "Got that out of your system, then?"

He snorted derisively and looked at the Doctor. "The Legacy, Doctor, do you remember? So long ago…"

"All I hear is gibberish," Donna informed them both, to no affect. The Doctor was staring intently at the Valeyard, with the look on his face that suggested he was on the verge of an amazing discovery she wished he would share.

Then memories crashed in on her, memories of whispers in golden fire and shadows in her mind.

_You will carry the Legacy. You will be one of the mothers. Your heart and mine will join, and you will fulfill the prophecy._

Her head pounded. What the hell was going on?

_"'And the Red Star will carry this from the Wolf and the Storm, carry it from the dark into the wise light of Midnight's shadow, carry the Day of Birth from its haven Ready for Battle to the rebirthing of the Foundation.'"_ The Doctor recited thoughtfully. He shook his head, eyes hardening. "It never made sense, and it doesn't now. It's just a myth."

The Valeyard laughed. It was the sort of laugh Donna found herself never willing to hear again. "Nothing is ever just a myth. Everything is born of truth, after all."

"And then becomes so distorted you can't tell one from the other. Stop this, right now. You cannot destroy reality, it's never been done!"

"Oi, what are you two going on about?" demanded Donna furiously, having heard enough of that cryptic crap. "What's with this 'Legacy'? _Well_? And none of that 'myth is truth' stuff, either. Doctor, what the hell is Space Cadet here on about? Who is he, really? What is he doing here? Did we even land? How did he get on board?"

She stopped for a breath, her arsenal of questions cocked and ready in her throat.

The Valeyard turned to her suddenly, something like fear in his eyes. "A mother," he muttered, cutting off whatever Donna was going to say next.

Golden fire flashed in Donna's memory again. The Valeyard's eyes met hers for a brief second, and she watched as they widened dramatically. There was an awkward pause, then he smiled ruefully. Donna eyed him warily. Something about the Valeyard's stance changed in that moment: his hands fell to his sides, his robes hung more limply around him rather than appearing to carry the man's weight on their own, his shoulders lifted a little, and a little crease appeared in his forehead, his eyes scrunching as if he were straining against some unseen burden. His neck bowed slightly, though he never broke eye contact with Donna. It was a posture of defeat. Donna found the sight just as sickening as it was puzzling.

"All right, Doctor, you win. I can see more clearly now. Yes," he nodded to himself, "I can see quite clearly indeed. This is meant to be. The prophecy fulfills itself. All unto itelf. Always. Meant to be."

"What?" the Doctor looked lost at this unexpected admission of defeat. Victories didn't usually go like this. Usually, there was a reason behind them.

"Even I cannot stop it," continued the Valeyard, ignoring him. "Some paradoxes are meant to happen, but I am not one of them. Balance for balance, chaos in iron rot."

He then nodded curtly to the Doctor, who stood staring at him, bewildered, then bowed courteously to Donna, who glared at him in disbelief.

"Rose, you said her name was?" the Valeyard inquired rhetorically. He nodded again to himself when no one replied, seeming resigned. "Rose," he muttered, as though saying her name would summon her here. "Eternal Rose."

There was a long, uncertain moment of silence. Donna felt like breaking it, but the Valeyard beat her to it yet again.

"I believe you will be needing this," he said, and gave a cylindrical tube-thing to the Doctor. "It was given to me by the Eternals for safekeeping. It should be all you need." He bowed again and turned around, striding toward the TARDIS doors.

"What?" The Doctor didn't even looking at the device in his hand. It was too late; the Valeyard was already out the door into the dark forest there appeared beyond. As soon as the door closed, the TARDIS engines fired up in a jarring motion that knocked both him and Donna off their feet.

"What the bloody hell was that?" Donna shouted over the roar of the time rotor.

The Doctor was gripping the console tightly to keep from falling again, staring after the Valeyard.

"_What_?" He said again, still confused. Donna rolled her eyes.

The ship stilled at last, and Donna thought at first that they had landed somewhere until the Doctor spoke up.

"We're in the vortex," he said, glaring at the console. "What d'you think you're doing, anyway, mangy old box?" he asked it rudely, and sparks shot from the section nearest him. He jumped back, sniffing disdainfully. Honestly, he treated the thing like a pet, he should expect a bite every now and then.

"Doctor, what was that thing he — you, whatever — gave you?"

He only just seemed to remember that he had it in his hand then, and he whipped on his glasses to examine it fully. It looked like a case of some kind, even Donna could tell that, but when he finally got it to open down the middle, there was virtually nothing within. Instead, the casing was flat on the inside and black with little blinking buttons and controls Donna couldn't understand for the life of her.

"What is that?"

"It's a key," breathed the Doctor, astonished. "An electromagnetic key, to be precise. Opens deadlock seals the sonic screwdriver can't get past. They're…_rare_, though, incredibly, _unbelievably_ rare — where did he get it?"

"You mean you."

The Doctor glanced at her with a small grimace. "Not me. Well, _yeah_, me, me from the future, but not…not exactly me, more like a part of me in between regenerations, not _me_ me, otherwise things would be much simpler - or more complicated, never could tell the difference, but —"

"What the hell are you on about?"

"It's complicated." He concluded with a nod.

"I think I noticed that," Donna responded dryly. "But what did he mean with all that legend stuff? And what has Rose got to do with it?"

The Doctor closed the silver cylinder with a snap and a sigh, then gestured for Donna to seat herself comfortably on the jump seat. He leaned on the console in front of her, tucking the cylinder into his jacket and crossing his arms moodily. Looked like his usual look, overall. When he wasn't bouncing around like a kid in a candy store, at least.

"The _Legacy_, Donna," the Doctor corrected, to her annoyance. She didn't care what it was called! "It's called the Legacy, and it's not exactly a legend, more of a…myth."

"I don't care what it's called! I just want to know what it means!"

"That's just it," said the Doctor quietly, looking up at her through darkened eyes. "No one knows what it means. It makes absolutely no sense at all."

"But — what _is_ it?" Donna repeated impatiently, and the Doctor exhaled loudly.

"It is…everything, supposedly. A prophecy, of sorts, told by the Eternals themselves at the dawn of the universe about the fates of all the universes."

Donna frowned. "And what are Eternals?"

"Eternals are beings with literally no imagination. They need us — Ephemerals, they call us, supposedly because we are 'bound by time' —" Donna snorted loudly, looking pointedly around at the ship, and the Doctor couldn't help but smile; "They need us just to survive, because, honestly, what species can survive without some form of entertainment?"

"Death by boredom." Donna muttered.

"Exactly. Eternals utilise the thoughts and emotions of other races to meet their own needs."

"That's horrible!" She exclaimed, cringing. The Doctor only nodded.

"Yes. But they live in Eternity, not in Time, and that's why they are called Eternal — they never age, never die, never love or hate or anything. That's what makes them so dangerous. They can pose as gods and doom whole worlds or manipulate Ephemerals into doing what they want, all for a bit of fun."

"I prefer tea and saving the world, myself. And they made that prophecy thing or whatever it is?"

The Doctor nodded. "Yeah. Yeah, they did. Supposedly."

"So…it might not be true, right? Whatever it's saying, they could just be making it up, 'all for a bit of fun', as you said."

"They have no imagination," he reminded her. "They can't do anything like that on their own. They could have been helped, of course they could have, but the wording is too precise."

"'Precise'? I've never heard anything more cryptic in my life!"

The Doctor shot her an unamused look. "When you live in Eternity, Donna, try telling people their future without letting them know before it's supposed to actually happen. The Legacy isn't meant to be understood until it comes true."

Donna frowned at him again. "What the hell is the point, then? Why make a bloomin' prophecy at all? Besides, we're in a _time machine_."

He ran his hands through his hair in exasperation. She tried not to laugh at the electrocuted impersonation he made.

"Donna," he said slowly, and she got the impression he was trying to be extremely patient with her. "Timelines are constantly in flux, you can _see_ that, I know you can, even if I don't know how — you're a Time Lady. And this one involves us. Even if I did travel to the future, we would only see the timeline as it is now, with nothing we do ever ever changing it."

"Then what did the Valeyard guy mean?"

"I don't know."

"What?" Donna pretended to looked shocked.

"Oh, shut up," he muttered.

"Haven't you got any ideas, though? I mean…_Rose_."

The Doctor frowned at her, puzzled.

"Bad Wolf can mean a lot of things," he told her. "It doesn't have to mean Rose."

"How can that be a coincidence, though?" asked Donna, standing to pace around the console, feeling unexpectedly jittery. "I mean, now, of all times, when the Legacy is mentioned, and Rose comes back, and she said those words to me — Bad Wolf — when I was in that parallel world—"

"Yes, Donna," said the Doctor, watching her but not moving himself. "It can be coincidence. That's all it is."

Donna shook her head vehemently. He didn't get it. Stupid alien boy.

"You weren't there," she said to him. "You weren't in that weird limbo-place before I 'regenerated'. There was a voice there, telling me the strangest things, goin' on about how it was the heart of the vortex, how it used to be the home or something to Bad Wolf but Bad Wolf is a completely different thing now…" she passed by the Doctor again, and he was looking at her with the strangest expression on his face. She ignored him, caught up in what she was saying.

"It said it was my other heart, that my mind was in the 'Core' or somethin' like that; convinced me to do the regeneration-thingy. It said…it said that Bad Wolf foresaw everything. Doctor…what does that mean?"

He stopped her with a hand on her arm as she passed him again. His eyes were darker than ever before, wild and so intense she found herself, for the first time in a long while, rather afraid of him.

"Show me." The Doctor ordered simply.

Donna's eyebrows furrowed in confusion. "How do I do that? Not exactly like I had a camera."

He moved slowly so as not to startle her, putting his hands carefully on her temples and pressing gently.

"Imagine a room," he told her softly, closing his eyes. "Every wall has as many doors as can fit it. Behind each door is a memory. Close all of the doors except one, the one you just mentioned."

Donna shrugged, closing her eyes as well and doing as she was told. It was easier than she thought it would be, taking only a few seconds to organize everything perfectly, complete with decorations on the doors and a dark green carpet that reminded her eerily of the life she'd lived in the Library. Then, slowly, she eased one of the doors open and mentally stepped back from her own mind, watching in awe as a presence—it wasn't something that could really be described, having no physical form even to her imagination—slipped like slime through the ceiling of the room; an odd feeling, to be sure. It brushed past her briefly, and she got a sudden, startling image of the Doctor and Rose dancing to an old Def Leppard tune — the same memory she'd witnessed on the video tape with Martha. She jerked back from the presence immediately, refusing to breach the Doctor's walls of privacy. She felt an unusual mix of gratitude and affection directed at her from him, though how she knew this and how it was even possible without confusing his emotions with her own was beyond her.

The ebony door she had enclosed the selected memory behind closed as soon as the Doctor's presence passed through it. She waited, oddly content in the sanctity of her own mind, until he reappeared and slipped out the same way he'd come, his feelings either numb and blank or blocked from her.

Physically, his hands left her face and she was jarred almost painfully back into reality with a feeling of dejected loss. She'd _liked_ it in her head. But it didn't matter now; the Doctor was standing before her, a peculiar expression on his face, his hair lawless to gravity, his eyes burning with the intensity of a sun.

Donna was not aware of taking a step back until the Doctor seemed to snap out of it.

"'Part of its heart escaped and went looking for her'," said the Doctor, quoting Donna herself, apparently back to normal. She rose an eyebrow at him. "Your second heart…Donna, your second heart — it's the Heart of the TARDIS in physical form. You are, literally, a manifestation of…" he gestured, wildly around him, "_her_, the TARDIS, the—"

"I'm a time machine?" Donna deduced incredulously. She inspected her hands curiously, then looked back at him. "Don't look like one, oddly enough."

"No, no, no, not the TARDIS, more like a…a…" he frowned like he'd come to a conclusion he really didn't want to believe. "A human/TARDIS biological metacrisis…" he murmured.

Strangely, Donna understood what that was.

"That's impossible." She told him flatly, shaking her head.

He narrowed his eyes. "Yes, it is," he agreed, taking up Donna's abandoned pacing. "By all rights, you should be dead."

"Thanks," Donna muttered sarcastically, but he didn't seem to notice. She looked around the control room, now seeing something far beyond what she'd orignally thought it was. This…was weird. "But isn't a metacrisis like…" she paused, fishing for the right words; "…a change? Like the Chameleon Arch can change a Time Lord into a human?"

He stared at her from across the room where he'd stopped, and she didn't blame him. How did she know any of that, anyway?

"But it can't be reversed," he said, and she wasn't sure if it was meant to be a warning, but it definitely sounded like one.

"Doesn't matter."

"It might."

Donna shook her head adamantly, positive of this if she was ever going to be positive about anything ever again.

"I'm not really a TARDIS, right, but that's because Rose changed it when she looked into it, remember? There's a bit of human in there. Not much, but enough. The TARDIS used the imprints of everyone else to…I dunno, magnify that human bit somehow. And since you're the biggest imprint she's got…" Donna shrugged, a smug grin playing about her lips. "I guess I'm part-Time Lord, part-TARDIS, part-human. Somewhere in here," she rapped lightly on her skull with a knuckle, "I've got your mind."

"But that will kill you Donna, don't you see? Humans aren't meant to —"

"Weren't you listening, though?" Donna interrupted him with a little smile. "I regenerated, remember? The TARDIS was being ripped apart by that Z-Neutrino energy thing — see? I'm already getting bits from you — so it wasn't the fall that killed me, but the Heart of the TARDIS opening up and joining with me. I died because I couldn't handle it — you were right about that. But then I regenerated, I changed into something that _could_ handle it, into —"

"A Time Lady," the Doctor breathed. "Ingenious."

Donna smirked. "I know."

"Bad Wolf," he murmured thoughtfully, resuming his pacing. "Rose. She was there, in the Core. She didn't speak, but I could sense her. Likely remnants of her time on Satellite Five. She saw the whole of space and time, only for a few seconds, but that could have been time enough for anything to change. Then the Legacy — he said you were one of the mothers…"

"Mother of what, though? Far as I know, I'm not pregnant. Unless there's something about the TARDIS you're not telling me?" she smirked playfully. As predicted, he gave her an exasperated glare, the mood in the control room lightening just a little.

"A mother of the future," he explained carefully. "A carrier. _The_ carrier, if the Legacy is anything to go by, but it's more than that. That voice, your other heart, it said, 'she foresaw everything'. Bad Wolf," he muttered the name to himself again, as if saying it would reveal its secrets.

"Doctor," started Donna carefully, "the Valeyard said something, when he was reciting that Legacy thing — something about Bad Wolf being eternal, and howling at an Eternal that would 'grant it the same'; could that mean…?"

"Donna," the Doctor said suddenly, appearing right beside her. "What is 'vigor'?"

"I…I dunno, enthusiasm?" Donna tried, confused by this unexpected query, vaguely recollecting the word from the Valeyard.

"And another word for enthusiasm…?"

"Um…happy-slappy?"

"No, Donna, _think_. Survival is existing, but we…_ooh_, Donna, we are _alive_!"

"Life?" Donna guessed. "Vigor is 'life'?"

The Doctor made a noise of affirmation, nodding his head so hard she worried it might fall off and looking at her like she was supposed to know exactly where this was all heading.

"And a sun's rays, at least on Earth, are golden, yes? Golden, Donna —"

"Like the Core was?"

He nodded, eyes growing wider and wider in the excitement of his discovery by the second. He'd lost her.

"Exactly. Like the Core. The eye of the void, so to speak; the middle of it, the peace that keeps all the universes in balances. The final act of the Last Great Time War was life, Donna, did you know that? Rose took the time vortex into herself, turned the Daleks into dust, and then brought Captain Jack back to life, rendering him immortal."

"When it began," Donna realized. "When Bad Wolf was born. Wait, Captain Jack is immortal? How old is he?"

"There's a time and a place," he admonished her, and she glared at him. It was an innocent question! "And then the next part…well, that's simple enough. I regenerated for her, based on her, made almost entirely just for her in this life."

"That's something to be proud of," Donna groused sardonically, rolling her eyes.

He opted to ignore that.

"The Moon is…Martha, has to be."

"What? Where'd you get that from?"

"The third line, Donna, keep up. The ball of light in the Core that spoke to you with Martha's voice, what color was it?"

Donna's mind raced to catch up with his. It failed.

"Well, sort of…silvery, I guess…like moonlight!"

The Doctor nodded again. "Yep. Which means that wherever Rose is, she's with Martha. And just now…the learned court…must be the Valeyard."

"Why is that?"

"The Valeyard means, literally, the learned court prosecutor. That must be why he backed off…Bad Wolf must have done something. He never backs off, I should know."

"And the Howling?" Blurted Donna as she remembered. "What's that?"

"That's what the Eternals call the Void, the nothingness that separates every universe and keeps them from bleeding together. But that part hasn't happened yet; can't have, we only just got through the 'learned court's soul' bit."

"So…something's gonna happen with another universe, then?"

The Doctor made a noncommital noise in the back of his throat. "Possibly."

"And…and the rest?" She ventured hesitantly, her peculiarly sharp memory poking insistent needles at her to garner attention.

He stared down at Donna grimly.

"There's an Eternal organizing all of this, possibly against the wishes of the others. At the very least, they're urging things along. Must've done something to make sure Bad Wolf survived…made it eternal itself…"

"What, is Bad Wolf an Eternal?"

"No…unless…but no, that's…self-sacrificing," he muttered to himself. "That's  
_very_ self-sacrificing, they wouldn't have done that, but…yes, _yes_! HA! I can see it! Whoever it is needs my help, they've locked themselves here, in Time, away from their home… Someone has been manipulating her entire life. And now, that…that includes me."

"Her who?"

"Rose. The Eternals have Rose. They've been manipulating her from the beginning." His voice was hollow, despairing.

Donna couldn't even comprehend that. She couldn't imagine living a lie.

"But…what could they want with her?"

"Entertainment," the Doctor spat venomously, making Donna flinch. "That's all they ever want, just new Ephemerals to toy with."

"Isn't there some way of getting rid of them or something?"

The Doctor shook his head.

"Not unless you've got a Skasis Paradigm or a Guardian or a _Mitgefühl_ in your pocket, no. But I will tell you one thing."

His eyes burned into hers again.

"No Eternal or Dalek or Master is standing in my way this time. _Nothing_ can stop me until I have her back."

Never stand in the way of love, Donna supposed was the main lesson she would learn that day.

**o0o**

"Nothing can stop the detonation! NOTHING, and NO ONE!"

Rose had never seen someone so evil so deliriously happy and faithfully prayed that once they were through with this she never would again.

A familiar grind-and-roar noise filled the room and all of Rose's hopes at once became reality. It was here, it was impossible, and it was a blue box.

The TARDIS had arrived.

_Don't half take his time, does he?_ thought Rose, slumping with relief into Midna, who grinned as an invisible breeze ruffled her hair.

Everyone turned to the TARDIS expectantly as it faded into view. It wasn't, however, the Doctor who emerged.

"Donna!" Rose shouted, surprised.

Donna grinned at her for an instant, but was then forced to drop to the floor as Davros shot a ray of energy at her. She rolled away, standing up behind the control console several feet away from them.

"Any day now would be nice!" Donna bellowed as her clothes sizzled from another ray that had just skimmed her back. She pranced around the console, never moving far from it.

"Almost there!" shouted a muffled, familiar voice from behind the doors of the TARDIS. Rose almost collapsed with relief. "Got it!"

"Brilliant!" Jack muttered.

"Finally," said Jenny happily.

Rose's mum looked partially relieved and somewhat pissed off. Mickey grinned and Sarah joined him. Martha laughed, giddy. They weren't out of trouble yet, but they may as well have been. The Doctor could do that to people.

The Doctor burst from the time machine and quickly joined Donna, who was turning dials and flicking switches like she actually knew what she was doing.

"You can't even change a _plug_," the Doctor muttered, bemused yet unsurprised, as he pulled out a cylindrical silver device from his pocket.

"D'you wanna bet, Time-boy?" Donna retorted, tapping her temple meaningfully.

The Supreme Dalek was counting down over the intercom and the guards in the room were shouting together in rage, so that a discordant symphony of screeching voices filled the room. The Daleks took aim and tried to fire, but something was stopping them: no ray of light left any of them. From Donna's smirk, Rose could gather that she must've had a little something to do with that. Midna grinned maniacally. Rose was just confused.

_"Four…three…two…one…"_

The screen showing the powering planets abruptly disappeared and Donna yelped triumphantly. An alarm started sounding off in the distance. Martha, Jack, Mickey, Sarah-Jane, Jenny, and Jackie were staring up at the Daleks around them in awe, for they still had not killed anyone. They got to their feet quickly.

"Closing all Z-Neutrino relay loops, using an internalized, synchronized backfeed reversal loop," Donna explained rapidly.

"Now _that's_ my mind!" The Doctor complimented, opening a slot in the console with one hand and cracking the cylinder he held in half with the other. It was an odd compliment, certainly, and not one you'd usually hear if, say, you passed a test. Thus was the life of a time-traveler.

"System in shut-down!"

"Detonation negative!"

"Explain! Explain! Explain! EXPLAIN!"

Well, the Daleks were pissed off.

"You will suffer for this!" Davros yelled and pointed his hand at Donna to shoot another ray of lightning at her. But Donna was in control; Davros shook violently as the blue energy reversed back on him, surrounding his outretched arm. He jerked back in defeat.

"Ooh…bioelectric dampening field—"

"Show off," the Doctor cut her off, his fingers a blur as they worked the buttons inside the device. Donna pouted, affronted. Then he took out his sonic screwdriver and used that, cursing under his breath in a language the TARDIS failed to translate. Donna smacked him on the shoulder indignantly.

Still shaking, Davros ordered, "Exterminate her!"

"Weapons non-functional!"

Donna explained that part to them in rapid-fire techno-speak that Rose really couldn't make heads or tails of. All she knew was that she had some truly brilliant friends.

"But how did you work that out?" she asked when Donna finished, wondering just how Donna had become a mini-Doctor.

The Doctor met her eyes across the room and they both grinned.

"Time Lord," the Doctor stated, as if that explained everything. "Part-Time Lord,"

"Part-Human," Donna finished. "Oh, yes. Human/TARDIS three-way biological metacrisis — I'm part-time ship! Ha! Half Doctor, Half Donna, with a bit of TARDIS for extra flavor!"

"The Doctor-Donna," agreed the Doctor, still grinning at Rose but turning to glance at Donna. "Just like the Ood said. Remember, Donna? They saw it coming! The Doctor-Donna."

The Ood? That was a story they'd have to tell her later, Rose thought.

"Holding cells deactivated!" Donna announced, getting back to work at the controls. The light above Rose and Midna shut off and Rose had to desperately repress the urge to rush over to the Doctor hold him tight to her and never let go. She did, however, keep enough of her head to continue clutching tightly to Midna's hand.

"Stop them!" Davros hollered, like he could do anything to control a situation that was torn completely from his hands. "Get them away from the controls!"

The Daleks started forward, though what they intended to do, Rose didn't have a clue.

"Aaand…spin," grinned Donna, like she was playing a video game as the Doctor worked around her.

The Daleks indeed began to spin, first their bottom halves, then their middles went in opposite direction, then the dome began turning just out of sync with the rest of their bodies.

"Help me! Help me!" One of them dared to shout as it completely lost control of its motor functions. Jack, with his arm around Martha's shoulders, laughed, and it wasn't long before everyone else was joining in. Savin' the world _and_ a show. Couldn't find a better way to spend the afternoon, really.

The Doctor looked at Donna in awe, his jaw slack.

"But that…that's brilliant! Why didn't _I_ think of that?"

"Because you are just a Time Lord, you Dumbo! Lucky I've got a bit of human, that gut instinct that comes hand-in-hand with planet Earth. I can dream up ideas you wouldn't think of in a million years! Oh, the universe has been waitin' for me! Now, let's send that trip signal all over the ship — did I ever tell ya? Best temp in Chiswick? Hundred words per minute," she wiggled her fingers.

"Ha!" the Doctor agreed in triumph as she set work.

_"What is happening? Explain!"_

Jack was rushing back behind the controls to the TARDIS, presumably to get his gun back.

"Come on, Doctor, we've got twenty-seven planets to send home. Activate magnatron!"

"Stop this at once!" Davros wheeled his way closer to them.

Jack emerged from the TARDIS with his and Rose's gun in hand. "Mickey!" he shouted, tossing Rose's at him. Mickey caught it deftly and pointed it at Davros before he could go any further.

"Just stay where you are, mister," said Mickey threateningly. Rose could easily see he was enjoying himself.

One of the Daleks spun directly in front of Jack as he tried to take a step forward. He rolled his eyes and pushed it to the side, shouting, "Out of the way!" He cocked the particle gun.

Taking after his example, Rose ran with Midna and Sarah-Jane behind another Dalek, pushing it past her mum into the wall.

"Good to see you again!" Sarah said to Rose as the Dalek careened into a wall.

"Great, you too!" Rose agreed with a broad grin.

Not far away, Martha and Jenny shoved the last Dalek away, smiling. Wasn't everyday you got to push a Dalek into a wall, after all.

"Ready?" said Donna to the Doctor at the controls. "And reverse!"

"Off you go, Klom," said the Doctor, pulling back a lever. "Back home, Adipose III!"

Rose glanced at Midna. She was pale and in pain but clearly trying not to show it, her face a mask of joy and relief.

"You all right?" she asked her quietly.

Midna shot her an odd, unreadable look. "Why shouldn't I be?" she challenged her question with another.

Rose shook her head. "I dunno…you're jus'…quiet."

"I'm usually quiet," Midna smiled a smile of no mirth. "Today's just an interesting day."

"Define 'interesting'." Rose muttered, looking around them at the organized chaos.

Midna smirked but said nothing.

"What are you gonna do now?" she asked curiously. "Where are you from? Do you have a family?"

Midna's eyes shone strangely brighter. "No," she replied calmly. "No family. No home. Not anymore."

Rose caught her bottom lip between her teeth.

"I'm sorry."

"Thanks."

"What happened?"

Midna shrugged, deliberately nonchalant. "You already know. Destroyed the universes and all that. Not exactly like my family could survive that. Sort of."

"What d'you mean? How did you destroy the universes if we're still here?"

"After I destroyed them, I rebuilt them. I had to, because the Void still existed and it was an unnatural paradox to have it exist but no universes with it. But first I had to get rid of myself, because I tipped the balance."

Rose wouldn't even pretend to understand any of that.

"But then…your family…they could still be alive, couldn't they? Just in a different universe?"

Midna looked at her with that unreadable look again. "That's what I'm worried about."

Rose found herself wishing she was the one with all that empathic ability. It would help to understand the enigma in the shape of the girl in front of her.

Midna tugged her hand gently and Rose allowed herself to be led over to the Doctor and Donna. She was dimly aware of the others following them.

"Is anyone gonna tell us what's goin' on?" Rose asked when they got there.

"Right," said Donna as the Doctor continued his work with the cylinder. "I died, but the TARDIS didn't like that, see, 'cause I'm the best replacement after you left. With a bit of jiggery-pokery to my biological makeup, I was able to handle regenerating with two hearts, stabilized by the imprints of every past companion to ever own a TARDIS key."

"What?"

"Part-human, part-Time Lord, part-TARDIS. And I've got the best part of the Doctor. I've got his mind."

Rose's mind sorted the most important bits and threw the gibberish she couldn't understand in a dusty corner for later.

"So there's two of you? Two Doctors?"

"I can't tell you what I'm thinking right now," Jack muttered candidly. Rose poked him gently in the ribs for that.

"I still don't get it, though. Why part-TARDIS? How does that work?"

"Long story," the Doctor elaborated. "I'll tell you later. Do you know if there are any other prisoners on board?"

"I dunno," Rose replied honestly. "Except for…well, they had to test the Reality Bomb…but other than them…"

"Right. Jack, do a scan."

"On it," Jack replied, looking to his wrist device. He set his gun on the console and pressed a few buttons, frowning at a holographic screen with a bunch of colored dots scattered across it. "Um…Doctor?"

"What is it?"

Jack showed him the screen. The Doctor's face paled. Slowly, he turned around to face Rose and Midna.

"Midna," he said hoarsely, then cleared his throat and tried again. "Midna, what species are you, exactly?"

Rose looked down at her. She bit her lip thoughtfully in a way that irresistably reminded Rose of herself.

"I'm…" she hesitated, glancing at Rose. Then, as if drawing strength from that glance, she stood up straighter, look the Doctor in the eye and taking a deep breath. "I'm a Time Lady."

"That's not possible," the Doctor denied, shaking his head. Rose felt more than a little put-off. Midna had _lied_ to her!

"There's a lot of things going on right now that aren't possible, Doctor."

"But…but that's just…not _possible_!"

And suddenly, everything clicked. Midna's weird looks, her mysterious past that she wouldn't tell anyone about, the lies, her eyes…

Rose gently nudged Midna into facing her.

"Midna," she said gently, "your family…who are they? Anyone we know?"

Midna smiled sadly at her. Rose could tell from the look in her eyes that she wasn't far off the mark.

"Not yet," Midna assured her. "Not my parents, at least; you won't meet them until…well, later. Much later."

"What is she talking about?" The Doctor interjected.

Rose ignored him, eyes narrowed, trying to piece together every bit of cryptic information Midna had ever given her. She looked into her eyes again and saw something swimming just underneath surface, a barely leashed power that was, no matter what Midna said, undiminished by time — was, in fact, powered by it.

The Wolf in her began to howl.

"How did you take the singing from me?" Rose asked tightly.

"I didn't." Midna smiled. "You gave it to me."

"But how?"

"You didn't need it anymore. I didn't either, but that doesn't matter. I was just the most receptive to it."

"But why?"

"I am—"

Whatever Midna was, it was going to have to wait, because Davros was rather impatient. He turned around, Mickey following him with the big-ass gun, to face Dalek Caan, who, Rose had admit, she had forgotten about.

"But you promised me, Dalek Caan. Why did you not foresee this?"

Midna rolled her eyes, looking a bit miffed at being interrupted, but didn't make any effort to resume whatever it was she was going to say.

Dalek Caan giggled insanely. Midna shot it a disconcerted look. Rose wondered what Midna was feeling.

"Oh, I think he did," said the Doctor. "Someone's been manipulating the timelines for ages. Getting Donna Noble to the right place at the right time."

"This would always have happened," said Dalek Caan, sounding less mad than he had in a while. "I merely helped, Doctor."

"You…betrayed the Daleks?" Davros hissed.

"I saw the Daleks," Caan corrected. "What we have done, throughout time and space. I saw the truth of us, Creator, and I decreed _no more_."

"I will descend into the vault!" Bellowed the Supreme Dalek. Jack shut off the device on his wrist and grabbed his gun immediately.

"Heads up!"

"Davros, you have betrayed us!"

"It was Dalek Caan," Davros protested feebly.

"The vault will be purged! You will all be exterminated!" The Supreme Dalek, who had lowered himself from the ceiling, fired a ray at the control console. Sparks flew. The Doctor fell back from it, shielding himself, having been the closest.

Jack belatedly aimed his gun at the Dalek and fired amid its protests. The red casing burst into the flame, the top half utterly decimated.

The Doctor pulled himself to his feet, brushing away the smoke with his hands.

"We've lost the magnatron! And there's only one planet left! _Oh…_" he laughed a laugh of rueful irony that said he should have expected it; "Guess which one. But we can use the TARDIS! Donna!"

"On it!" Donna called, already on her way to the blue box. The Doctor grimaced and fiddled with the cylinder in his hand.

"What's that?" Rose asked him.

"A key," he replied. "It can override deadlock seals. Or, in this case, make one _and_ override one!"

"What?"

"I'm going to need your help with this one, Rose. I need to put a time lock on the Dalek ships and seal them inside the Cascade without locking us in, too."

"How am I s'posed to help with that?"

He just looked at her, and somehow she understood. She turned to Midna. "Midna, I'm sorry, but I need to let you go, all right? Go inside the TARDIS, you should be safe there."

Midna looked panicked just from the thought of it, but she nodded anyway. Rose frowned to herself. That was too easy. Why had she agreed so quickly?

The Doctor flicked a few switches overhead. "Maintaining atmospheric shell!" he shouted, loud enough so that Donna could hear him from inside the TARDIS.

"The prophecy must complete," said Dalek Caan.

"Don't listen to him!" Davros ordered, though what good he thought it would do, Rose didn't know.

"I have seen the end of everything Dalek, and you must make it happen, Doctor!"

"He's right," the Doctor murmured, pausing. His hand hovered over the slot he'd opened earlier, seconds from dropping the open cylinder inside. "'Cause with or without the Reality Bomb, this Dalek Empire's big enough to slaughter the cosmos. They've got to be stopped. We can lock them up here, but they could escape."

"Could they, though, Doctor?" Rose asked, gingerly releasing Midna's hand and stepping closer to the Doctor. Midna stiffened, but didn't leave or panic or collapse like Rose half expected her to. "Aren't I strong enough to keep that from happenin'?"

"Rose, you know what the Daleks are like. They always manage to survive. _Always._" His free hand lingered over the controls Rose suspected would somehow destroy the entire fleet. His eyes were haunted and hard, determined and pained. He didn't know what to do. He was battling with himself ferociously, she knew, and it was tearing him apart. "This is my chance to get rid of them completely."

"But you won't," said Rose confidently, stepping even closer, until her body flush against his side. "You won't do that. You can't."

"I've changed since you last saw me, Rose," the Doctor snapped, avoiding her gaze.

She refused to take the bait.

"But you're still the Doctor," she said firmly, clasping his hand loosely in both of hers.

"And what is that, Rose? Who is the Doctor?"

He met her eyes with his, and they burned together.

_"There is another fate set in store for the Doctor. Caan has said that at the end of it all his soul will be bared to the world, and all will know his true face, his true name. Quite possibly, it is a fate far worse than death that Dalek Caan has seen for your precious Doctor."_

"…but this is the truth, Wolf. The Doctor takes ordinary people and he fashions them into weapons, as he has undoubtedly done with you. What has he done to you, valiant child?"

"Behold, the children of time, transformed into murderers. I made the Daleks. He made this. What of you, Wolf?"

"The Doctor is at fault for simply existing. How many more? Just think…how many more have died in his name? The Doctor…the man who keeps running, never looking back because he dare not out of shame. When I see him, this will be my final victory. I have shown you, his dearest companion – his 'tamer' – of his true self. You protect him from all you can. Dare you protect him from himself?"

"Yes."

Yes. Oh, yes. Hell yes. She would not let him do this. Not again. _No._

She was standing so close to him. So close…she leaned closer, her breath tickling his ear, their bodies as one. She told him once, she could do it again.

She had to tell him, had to answer him, had to let him know who the Doctor really was.

"The Doctor…is the man I love."

He froze as she pulled away slowly, looking into his face, his eyes.

Without ever looking away from her, he ordered the others quietly, "Get inside the TARDIS. Everyone. _Now_."

Rose heard them scramble to do as he said, but somehow knew that Midna was lingering behind. It was as if she could feel her presence.

"Midna," she said gently, refusing to break her stare with the Doctor, "go. We'll follow. I promise."

"All right…" Midna paused, coming closer to put a hand on her shoulder briefly. Her body relaxed by a fraction, and then she let go. "Gran."

Rose's head snapped around to face her in disbelief. Had she just…?

Midna grinned cheekily and winked, then spun on her heel and darted into the TARDIS after the others. She poked her head back out a second later.

"By the way, I can't hold him back for long," she nodded at Davros, who, Rose suddenly noticed, was frozen in one place with an expression of horror etched into his wrinkles. Midna disappeared again.

Rose turned back around to face the Doctor, feeling rather heady at the look he gave her.

He dropped the key into its slot.

As soon as both hands were free, he wrapped his arms tightly around her, trembling, and she held him, comforting, willingly giving him everything she had so he would have the strength to do the same.

When their lips met at last, she howled.


	12. Survival of the Martyr

If you thought it was weird before…

**Survival of the Martyr: Chapter Eleven**

"We can't."

"Why not?"

"It's…not there."

"Not there? What do you mean it isn't _there_? The Void didn't…"

"Yeah. But it's worse than that, 'cos before it happened, there was a war. The Armageddon War, they called it."

"…What happened?"

"Everything you can think of. Me, Mum, Tony, Mickey…we're the only survivors. There's no one else."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault."

"So we can't go back. What d'you want to do?"

"Well, I thought…I mean, I jus' sort of assumed…"

"Come with me?"

"Are you offering?"

"Always room for you."

"I'll always be there. But…what about Mum? Mickey's gone with Jack and Martha; I'm worried about 'er bein' a single mother all on her own again."

"What about Pete? Didn't he come?"

"I dunno. I thought so; we all thought so. But we haven't seen 'im…"

"We'll find him."

"But until then?"

"Until then…it's up to you. You could stay here and take care of your mother or you could leave her here in the hands of Torchwood Three until you can visit."

"M' not sure I'll want to."

"Don't say that."

"Why not? I mean it well enough."

"Just don't. She's your mother."

"Yeah, an' I love her. But you're…"

"What?"

"Never mind."

"What?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Sure, it does."

"Just drop it, Doctor."

"No. Not this time. You're gonna tell me what you think for once. No holding back."

"You won't like it, Doctor. I won't do that to you."

"I don't have to like it."

"…All right, then. You're…everything."

"Don't say that."

"What did I tell ya?"

"Just…don't."

"I'll say what I like! I'm my own person, Doctor, whether you like it or not, an' if I say I'm gonna love you for the rest of my life, then I _mean_ I'll love you for the rest of my life. Got it?"

"No."

"What?"

"No, I don't get it. What did I ever do to make you…? How can you…?"

"What, can't even finish a sentence now? And don't look at me like that! Why can't you say it? It's jus' _one_ word, Doctor, what's so wrong with it?"

"I thought you understood."

"I do."

"Yeah, I can see that."

"No, really, Doctor, I _do_. Sayin' it ties you down. Sayin' it means you're flyin' and the only way you're ever gonna land is by crashing. Sayin' it means there's something you care about more than the universe itself, an' that's something that you can't afford to do because you really _can_ rip apart the universe if you had a mind to. Bu' sometimes, Doctor, that's all right. It really, _really_ is. 'Cos you know what? When you stand up an' _do_ something instead of jus' sittin' back and letting it happen, you're all on your own, an' you _need_ someone there, you just need a hand to hold. If there's anything I've learned from you, Doctor, it's that."

"OI! You two! You better not be plannin' on sleeping in the TARDIS tonight! C'mon, Mum's set up a guest room–"

"No, Donna, that's all right, we–"

"Don't be ridiculous; you're as bad as _'im_! Now go on; get you a change of clothes or something. Granddad's helpin' me with dinner."

"God save us all. Ow!"

"Serves you right."

**o0o**

_Laughter, laughing, smiling, grinning, teasing…  
__Shared looks, lingering touches…  
__Anger, mixed hatred and love…  
__Desire, thick and burning…  
__Bones melting, her heart aching…  
__Hands frozen; times fading…  
__Lost forevers, broken tomorrows…  
__Colors bleeding, shadows hiding…  
__Cold and lost, scarred and screaming.  
__Burning…sour smoke of blackened ash…  
__Pleading, begging, bleeding…  
__Panic, anger, hope all clash…  
__Terror, horror, eternal darkness…  
__Death. So much death. So much…  
__Nothing. Just nothing. Nothing's left.  
__Cold. So cold, the Void, because nothing's there._

_Mum? Dad?_

Doc…

"NO!"

"Rose?"

Shivering, but not cold, not anymore…

Sweating, a reminder of the burns…

Fear, fear of something long dead…

Comfort, vain comfort…

"ROSE!"

Warmth, no burning.

Love, no fear.

Doctor.

"Doctor?"

"I'm here, Rose. I'm here. I'm here. What happened?"

She lay quietly in the dark for a moment, stumbling over the answer even in her mind.

"Everything you can think of," she whispered at last.

He simply held her closer, the fabric of his pajamas scratching against her cheek, her own clinging limply to her damp skin. She must have kicked the blankets off sometime in the night. She doubted the Doctor had.

**o0o**

Dawn saw them eating breakfast, of all things. It seemed too normal. Sylvia had only coffee while Wilf nibbled at his toast and bacon as he watched the news in the living room on the couch that was still rumpled from Midna's sleeping on it (as the other sofa across the room matched from Jenny's own rest). Donna drank tea over a plate of toast. Jenny preferred scrambled eggs with some kind of hot sauce and nothing else; Midna poured liberal amounts of syrup over her French toast; the Doctor picked at his bacon; and Rose stuffed bacon strips in her mouth without really tasting it.

It was only the silence that suggested there were legends in the room, or that something extraordinary had happened only the day before. This silence was not oppressive, but nor was it alive with excitement, either. In fact, if either Sylvia or Wilf were made to describe it, the only thing they would be able to come up with was "lost".

For that was, indeed, what these heroes were. Lost, that is. Never before had they encountered something so bone-deep terrifying as they had just recently, and no one knew quite how to deal with it. Rose was so tired she had difficulty working up the appetite to eat, the restless hours of her sleep punctured by her nightmares. They were getting itchy staying in one place for as long as they had, even Midna. _Especially_ Midna, in fact, for, silent as she was, she fidgeted ceaselessly.

And then came the questions everyone was expecting.

"How did you do it?" the Doctor said to Midna, pushing away his plate.

Midna froze mid-bite, swallowed, and leaned back, letting her fork fall to her syrup-drenched plate with dull clatter. Everyone, even Wilf, turned their attention to her.

"Do what?"

"Just answer me."

Midna sighed.

"Long or short? Beginning or from when we first met?"

The Doctor eyed her for a moment before he replied, "When _did_ we first meet?"

Midna chuckled wryly. "Touché, Doctor. In that case, I'll start from the start. Linearly, I was born in the June of 2057 to Natalya and Alonzo Black, on the planet Castrovalva in the year 8073 in the _Foundation_."

"Foundation?" repeated the Doctor as though trying to place a name that was familiar but that he hadn't heard in a while. "Foundation, foundation…wait, _the_ Foundation?"

"Doctor?" questioned Rose curiously.

"_The_ Foundation, Rose, as in…as in the founding universe, the first one of all of them, the original; the one _true_, authentic universe–"

"Don't get too worked up, Doctor," Midna interrupted grimly. "It's not there anymore."

The Doctor's mouth shut closed with an audible click. He looked away for a moment, eye grim. "Go on."

"My grandfather was Nicholsen Black, born in America in the early nineteen-seventies whose own grandfather was an alien from the Magi Republic of Cree, a _Mitgefühl_."

"Doctor, didn't you say that was one of those things that could get rid of the Eternals?" Donna asked when Midna paused. Midna and the Doctor exchanged significant looks. Jenny looked between them, frowning, and the Doctor nodded.

"Leander."

"Yes," said Midna, surprised. "How–"

"I knew him, once."

Midna nodded. "Then you know what he was capable of. It skipped my father's generation, but…" she shrugged.

"But you're not a _Mitgefühl_," declared the Doctor firmly, tapping the side of his hed conspicuously. "I would know. So what are you?"

"That's the thing. Even though the _Mitgefühl_ lineage skips a generation for every family, it's only the manifestation that doesn't show itself. It's still there, in the blood, growing steadily stronger. But to make matters complicated, neither my grandmother nor my grandparents on my mother's side were exactly human. I guess you could say I'm some sort of bizarre hybrid."

"Why did you lie to me?" Rose accused. Midna avoided her eyes.

"I couldn't…at the time, I hated myself for it, Rose. I denied it, made myself forget. You have no idea…" she closed her eyes and sighed shakily.

"I'm sorry."

"Thank you, but you don't need to be. All will be corrected in due time, anyway."

"What d'you mean?"

The Doctor shot Midna a warning look, but she pretended not to notice. "That's not important right now. Right now, you just need to understand."

"Understand what?"

"You all think I'm from the future, but I'm not. I haven't been sent as some kind of message to keep you from doing something stupid. I am here to keep the balance in check, nothing more."

"What does that mean?" "Who are you?" "What are you doing here?" "What have you done with my daughter?" "What's a _Mitgefühl_?" "What does this have to do with yesterday?" "What's wrong with Donna?" "Who the bloody hell _are_ you?"

A high-pitched whistle silenced the bombardment, and everyone turned to Donna, startled.

"Everybody shut up!" said Donna in typical Donna fashion. "Let the woman _speak_ for Christ's sake! Go on," she added more kindly to Midna, to smiled and nodded in thanks, apparently amused by their antics.

"Patience," she said, holding up a hand as if shield herself from more interrogation. "Donna? You're a Time Lord – Lady, whatever – right?" Cautiously, Donna nodded. "And you, Doctor?"

"Yes. What are you getting at?"

"Patience," Midna admonished again. "And Rose, you have weird temporal superpowers, yeah?"

"Erm…sort of."

"Right. And what it all boils down to is that, not only am I a _Mitgefühl_, but because of you," she nodded at Donna, "you," at Rose, "and you," the Doctor; "I have two hearts and a wolf inside me."

"_What_?"

"What the hell are you on about?"

"_Two_ hearts?"

"You're actually _alien_?"

Donna whistled again, fingers in her mouth. Obediently, the room silenced. Sylvia was hopelessly confused, Wilf looked amused, and the time travellers didn't know what to think. Breakfast, for certain, was long forgotten. Donna, after succeeding in making everyone quiet, turned to gape at Midna openly.

Midna grimaced.

"Look, I can't explain in detail. But currently, I have three grandparents in this room, one great- grandparent, one great-great-grandparent, and one aunt. Happy?"

Rose looked frozen to her seat. "Not really."

Midna winked at her. "Didn't think so. But as I said, that's just the start of it. That just tells you who I am, not what I can or am supposed to do."

"But what is a _Mitgefühl_?" asked Jenny, sticking with the simple for now.

Midna started to answer, but the Doctor beat her to it. Seemed he was best at reacting to stress by lecturing – or, more accurately, rambling.

"A _Mitgefühl_ is what you might call an empath. They can sense emotions, so to speak. Well…it's more that _they_ feel what _you_ feel on a daily basis, usually through physical contact. But this empath is powerful. This empath can _manipulate_ your emotions as much as they can sense them."

Jenny breathed out a little bit of a gasp. Donna, Sylvia, and Wilf shot horrified looks at Midna. Resolutely, she glared right back.

"I was raised honorably, dammit. I don't go poking into people's business just because I _can_. Do you really think a descendant of yours would be any less?"

Donna looked away immediately, ashamed, and Wilf intently studied the pattern on the afghan on the back of the sofa. Sylvia held Midna's gaze a little longer, then dropped it.

"I thought not."

"Midna," started the Doctor, "you said the _Foundation_ was gone. How is that possible?"

Midna scowled.

"One thing at a time, please, Doctor. You'll get your science when you're ready for it. Anyway," she cut him off before he could protest, "because I'm a tiny bit human, a lot Time Lord, and a lot weird-temporal-superwoman, I am unique. There is, literally, _no_ one even remotely like me in any universe. And as I said, the _Mitgefühl_ blood grew stronger and stronger, so by the time it got around to me, it was blown completely out of proportion. Add to that the ability to crush atoms in my fist, see fluctuating timelines, teleport wherever and whenever to whatever universe I pleased, _and_ snatch glimpses of the future; I was unstoppable. The only thing stopping me from being _God_ was myself. But all it took was a trigger."

"How can you travel time and universes, though?" asked Rose. "Unless you had the TARDIS…?"

Midna shook her head. "Your powers will grow with time, too. The Callings aren't just her," she nodded at Donna, "but Bad Wolf as well. Just trust me." Donna opened her mouth to comment, but her mother beat her.

"Not sure _I_ can do that," Sylvia muttered. Midna ignored her.

"So…I grow up to have demigod granddaughter?" said Donna incredulously. "What, my kid and theirs," she nodded to the Doctor and Rose, both of whom flushed and looked away, muttering under their breaths, "have it on or something?"

"No. I told you, I'm not from the future. Not this future, at least. Maybe I _will_ exist here. But not with these memories."

"What trigger?" the Doctor interrupted before Donna could say more. He got a heated glare for his efforts. "What does that mean?"

"It means, Doctor," replied Midna coolly, "that my emotions affect me more than anyone else's ever could. They're more powerful, more defining, more capable of controlling me. And they did."

"How?" he looked dreadfully curious. Midna glared at him.

Jenny put a hand on her shoulder, forcing her to look up. "What happened?"

Midna didn't answer right away. She picked up her fork and swirled it around in the syrup for a moment, her hands trembling.

Finally, she looked up, her golden orbs burning into Jenny's soft brown ones.

"I fell in love."

"But you're…" Rose started, then stopped.

Midna laughed mirthlessly. "Too young? Too young to fall in love? Yes, maybe I was. Doesn't change anything. My boyfriend dumped me 'cos I was better at sports _and_ math than he was, and I met a guy who could've made up for it. Nothing new, nothing special, but it made all the difference in the world."

"Why?" asked Jenny when no one else did.

Midna's eyes glowed, if possible, even brighter, but her expression was dark.

"Because he wasn't human. And I should have known better than to trust him like I did."

"But you loved him," said Rose, confused. "How could you not–"

"Because I _was_ young, all right!" Midna exploded, standing. Her eyes burned fiercely. "I was young, I was stupid, I fell for every single one of his petty _tricks_," she spat the last word angrily, as though she were trying to rid herself of slime.

"Who was it?" the Doctor queried, unaffected by Midna's sudden change of mood.

Midna sneered snidely and hissed, "He called himself Jason Warkson when he first met me, but you might better know him as the Master."

Both Donna and the Doctor took a sharp intake of breath. Rose, Jenny, Sylvia and Wilf looked confused.

"Who's the Master?" Rose asked.

"You're worst nightmare," Midna replied sharply before the Doctor could. "The Doctor's arch-rival, if you want. He's a Time Lord who went mad."

"And is dead," said the Doctor firmly.

"So is the Valeyard, but that didn't stop him, did it?" Midna snorted rhetorically. The Doctor and Donna stiffened. Rose frowned.

"Look, this all happened before the Rebirth, so bear with me."

"Rebirth?"

"As I said, _bear with me_. Now, the Master was smart. By this point, he had already met the Valeyard and re-assimilated him within the Time Lord matrix." Though this only made a bit of sense to the other two Time Lords in the room, she continued along the same vein. "They hid from the War together, made themselves human, plopped themselves all cosy and nice on Earth. A few centuries later, they remembered who they were and what they are and set about gathering research on you," she nodded at the Doctor. "They learned about Rose through the Battle of Canary Wharf records, on which she was recorded as one of six heroes who saved the world that day – and before you ask, no, she didn't get stuck in the other universe. Anyway, from then on, they kept a watch out for a blue box by infiltrating Torchwood One, and when I invited Jason to the Hub for a look around, it was a perfect opportunity for them."

She paused, catching her breath and allowing the others to absorb everything she'd said. "With me so far?"

A general murmur of assent followed, and she continued breathily.

"Right. Well, anyway, I picked the worst possible day, because, without any warning whatsoever, the TARDIS appeared. Donna and Nick showed up, and they took Jason home before he could see _too_ much, but it was too late. He'd seen enough. The next day, they took Annie."

"Who's Annie?" said Rose quickly.

"Her daughter," Rose nodded to Jenny. "My cousin."

"With who?" asked the Doctor, eyes narrowed. Midna shoook a finger at him and nearly chuckled at the parental overprotectiveness.

"Nuh-uh, Doctor. There's still a a very slight possibility this could all happen again, and I'm not giving you any more spoilers than I already have."

"And then what?" Wilf interposed. Midna's smile fell.

"They used experimentation as an excuse, but I'm sure you can imagine what really happened." She swallowed thickly. "But, of course, it didn't end there. The Doctor found out that Torchwood had taken Annie and, as usual, came to the rescue. He was captured, too. Then Rose realized what _he_ did and went in herself. My mom followed, and then Dad, and Donna, Nick, Martha, and so on, sucking them all in. All of them except me, because they couldn't warn me in time to get away."

She hesitated there, breathing heavily for some reason known only to her. She was still standing, though, and she used that as a start to pacing behind her chair.

"I loved him," she choked at last, and though her eyes were dry, her face was awash with anguish. "I _loved_ him, dammit! I loved him more than…more than anyone, apparently." She bitterly snapped that last as she wore a hole in Sylvia's kitchen. "I wanted nothing more than to please him, to be with him forever, and I could have, too, because I thought he loved me back. He didn't; that's when I learned that Time Lords are immune to _Mitgefühls_.

"He convinced me that Torchwood really _was_ doing experiments, and his dad – who was really the Valeyard – was the chief in charge of it all. I was pissed off, at first, until he explained that they found…" she stopped, took a breath, and plunged on; "…that they found an alien entity in all of them, an evil one, a Daemon, he said, and the Torchwood personnel were _helping_ you to eradicate the so-called entity."

She stopped pacing, her back facing the room, drawing back with one finger the long pale curtains around the window and proceeded to stare blankly outside. Her eyes mirrored the sun painfully back at its other occupants, who all were at a loss for what to say.

"But the experiments failed, he said. Because, in the end, the 'entities' gave up and left their hosts all but lifeless. But they weren't lifeless, and that was problem, he said. It was just that the Daemons had driven them mad, and they needed me to fix them the only way I could, the way only _I_ could. I wanted to help them, make them right, make them better, and Jason told me the only way I could make them better was by…" Midna paused again, letting her hand drop and the curtain with it. She didn't turn around. "…by making it worse," she whispered, wrapping her arms around herself. Rose started to stand, but the Doctor put a hand on her arm and shook his head.

Midna went on like she didn't know how to stop anymore.

"They screamed. They all screamed for me, all begged, all tried to make me see reason. But I _loved_ him," she snorted, "and so I believed that they really were mad and everything they said made no sense. Eventually, their minds truly did snap, and their bodies soon after. My family.

"Jason showed himself for who he was, then. That was…that was the final trigger, I think. I stopped holding myself back like the Doctor taught me to and just…_let go_. That was when the balance tipped. That was when I became powerful enough to destroy the entire multiverse. And I had to. I was _chosen_."

Another derisive snort. The Doctor didn't stop Rose from rising this time; in fact, he joined her as she made her way carefully Midna's side. Donna and Jenny followed their example while Wilf and Sylvia looked on; one, sadly, the other; more than a little terrified. The girl didn't seem to notice any of them, so lost in thought was she.

"But what I had the power to destroy, I had the power to recreate. So I did, not because I had to–though I did, at that–but because I…" she shuddered and leaned back into Donna's comforting embrace. The redhead clutched her tightly, tucking Midna's head under her chin.

Then, suddenly, she was tearing herself away from them, backing away like a frightened animal cornered, her eyes blazing, until her back hit the far wall and she stood there, rooted to the spot, frozen like the statue of a raging angel.

"Don't," she croaked. "Just…_don't_. Please. You don't understand. You still don't understand. You feel sorry for me, you pity me, I get that, but that's not it. There's more. Madness to a madman, sanity to the sane, fit neither; madness to a madman, sanity to the sane, fit neither…" she murmured repeatedly, eyes unseeing.

"What is she jabbering on about now?"

"Mum!"

"No, Donna. It's about time this girl and this," Sylvia wrinkled her nose at the Doctor, "_man_ get out of our house, _now_, before they bring more death to us!"

Midna's eyes shot to Sylvia, halting her own mantra. She was standing, now; when had she done that? And Wilf was standing behind her, looking all at once exasperated and apologetic. Midna, never breaking her gaze with Donna's mother, crossed the last few feet necessary to close the space between them. Sylvia started to take a step back, then arrested the motion, captivated, blue eyes caught up in a whirlwind of ancient, golden _time_.

"Death," whispered Midna harshly, "is nothing. I watched the universes _burn_. In fact, I _made it happen_. Do you know what that's like? Have you _any_ idea? I. Am. A. Murderer. But do you know what I do? I don't lay down and cry like a silly baby over everything that went wrong; I don't save your asses because I think they look hot; and I _never_ do anything without a damn good reason backing it up. You know why? Because I _fight_. I fucking _fight_; I don't run, I don't hide, I _fight_, cuz there's nothing left to do. I wish to any god that might be listening or that cares listen or bothers even to exist that I could bring to my grave a sense that I've lived a life worth dying for – but I _can't_. I'm gonna live forever doing everything in my power to keep ordinary, ignorant, _stupid_ people like you _safe_ 'n _happy_!"

She finished, breathing hard, leaving a stunned hush in her wake. Sylvia fainted; Wilf caught her and lowered her carefully to the floor. After a few seconds, Donna gave a low whistle.

"Been wantin' to do that for _ages_, thank you!" She hugged Midna, who stiffened and refused to respond, then pulled back quickly.

Midna faced the Doctor, a hard, determined look on her face. "Take me."

The Doctor looked back just as resolutely. "No."

Midna gritted her teeth. "Doctor, it _needs to be done_. You can't ignore it! Take me!"

"I won't."

"_Take me_!"

"No."

Midna opened her mouth, presumably to yell some more, but then she shut it with an audible click. Nodding curtly, she spun on her heel and stalked from the room to the daylight outside. Cursing, the Doctor ran after her.

**o0o**

She knew he was following her, but she couldn't frankly bring herself to care.

"Why are you doing this?"

To her surprise, he didn't try to stop her, but fell into step at her side. She pretended he didn't exist.

"Why do you hate me?"

Midna gritted her teeth and kept walking.

"Why aren't you Super-Woman anymore, then?"

She mentally counted to ten. In several languages. Then backward for good measure.

"How, exactly, do you plan on doing this?"

She caught sight of the TARDIS, but swept past it. Wasn't like she could go anywhere in it, anyway. She'd have to find another way.

"Where are you going?"

"I don't know!" Midna snapped. Then, realizing she had acknowledged the Doctor's presence, she suggested something anatomically possible to only three species in the entire universe. The Doctor's eyebrows rose.

"Learn that from me?"

"No." Midna answered shortly.

"Oh."

She rounded a corner sharply and found her annoyance spiking when he kept up with no problem at all.

An old lady with her dog walked by, and the little fiend at her side yapped sharply when he caught a wiff of the Doctor and Midna. Midna resisted the urge to kick the thing across the street.

"What happened?"

Midna snarled silently before gracing that with a response.

"I let the Void drain my abilities."

"And how long did that take? An eternity?"

"Two," Midna answered promptly. She wasn't serious, but she didn't care if he picked up on that or not.

"Jenny said she found you on Midnight. Naked."

"I put myself in a kind of stasis clothes wouldn't have survived."

"That wasn't what I asked."

"I hadn't realized you had asked anything at all."

He was silent for a moment. Then, quite suddenly, he started laughing.

"What?" asked Midna curtly, though she could feel her lips twitch treacherously. He only laughed harder. "_What_?"

He stopped, though the insufferable grin remained. "You're _really_ mine."

Midna scowled, mirth forgotten. "No, I'm not."

"Oh, but you _are_. On some level."

"_Not_."

"All right then. But what would you say if I asked you to define beauty?"

Midna stopped in her tracks to turn and gape at him. As if expecting this, he halted at the same time.

"What the _hell_ kind of a question is _that_?"

He just shrugged, making no effort to elaborate. He was still grinning, though. The bastard.

"You _can't_ define beauty, anyway, it just _is_, and it ain't even strong enough a word most of the time. So what's this really about?"

"What about wealth?"

"Can't be measured at all when there's all those countless cliché variables to be considered," said Midna without thinking first.

"Life?"

"Nature's way of keeping meat fresh."

If at all possible, the Doctor's grin widened. He nodded arrogantly to himself, then turned and walked off in the direction of the blinding midmorning sun peeking out from behind the thick gray clouds of an upcoming thunderstorm. Midna glared after him for a moment, considered running in the opposite direction, then decided, against her better judgment, that she would rather know what the hell he was _on_.

**o0o**

_Burningscreamingdyingbeggingpleadingpainsuchpainsuchfearsuchhopesolostsogonenomorenomoreno…_

"Rose?"

Her head jerked up. Jenny was kneeling in front of her, peering into her eyes worriedly. She was too close, though, and Rose flinched back, startled. Jenny obediently gave her some space to breathe.

"Jenny?"

She was sure she had said something, but all that came from her throat was some kind of hoarse, strangled note that even the TARDIS couldn't translate. Jenny handed her a glass of water and Rose downed it eagerly. Jenny's worried expression didn't fade.

"Are you all right?"

Closing her eyes to the pulsating pain behind her temples, Rose leaned back against the cushions of the sofa and nodded tiredly. She just about jumped out of her skin when she felt cool hands on her forehead.

"You're burning up," noted Jenny, frowning.

"Different body temperature," Rose tried to protest, but her tongue felt heavy and too big for her mouth, her limbs lead and her eyelids drooping beyond her control.

Jenny checked her pulse, a crease appearing on her forehead, then barked something incomprehensible over her shoulder to some of kind of creamy, carrot-topped blur. For a second, Rose felt as though she were in a free fall, and she opened her mouth to scream but there was no air in her lungs to use. Panicking, she lashed out with an arm. It collided with something soft, and something else grasped at her wrist, gentle but restraining, hardly comforting. She tried to sit up, but she barely even had the energy to stay conscious.

The last thing she remembered before her world erupted in blinding, white-hot pain was a voice. It whispered gently in her ear, fearful, yet somehow attempting to seem reassuring.

"I'm going to call the Doctor. You're going to be fine."

And the only thing she could recall thinking after that moment was, _Who's the Doctor?_

**o0o**

"Last meal, hmm?"

Not that Midna was complaining, but it was a bit morbid. The chips were delicious, and probably really would be the last thing she ever ate. The Doctor, however, grimaced.

"Not even going to wait till dinner?" he asked, and she wondered if that meant he would let her go through with it after all. Then he looked up and that same hard stubbornness was still obstinately and assuredly there and probably wasn't going anywhere anytime soon.

She sighed, appetite lost.

"Hadn't planned on it," she forced a cheerful tone to her voice and wasn't completely sure it worked. She popped a juicy, fluffy fry in her mouth, snorting at the thought that it was actually called a "chip". Brits were weird. Most of the time, she found it hard to believe they had ever been family at any point. They didn't even like baseball. Or proper football. And basketball was a rarity.

She yawned, bored.

They lapsed into an awkward silence. There wasn't much they could talk about, really. She couldn't get him to elaborate on his weirdness and he couldn't convince her not to condemn herself to an eternity of fighting…well, the Eternals. Small talk, they both knew, would only make it worse. She didn't see him as her real grandfather and he didn't see her as a granddaughter, so they may as well have been complete strangers.

No, that was wrong. Complete strangers could usually find some common ground to walk on if they needed to. That wasn't happening here.

"You could just leave them," he suggested pointlessly.

"No, I couldn't," Midna argued predictably.

"Why not?"

"They helped Davros and the Daleks."

"But they're not helping anyone now."

"Could be. The Master and the Valeyard are still out there somewhere."

"I don't think we need to worry too much about the Valeyard," said the Doctor with an peculiar expression. Midna's eyes narrowed.

"What makes you say that?"

"He's the one who gave me the key."

"Impossible."

"I do love that word."

"You would. No, really, that's impossible. He wouldn't do that."

"Curious, isn't it?" the Doctor hummed in agreement. "And yet here we are."

Midna frowned. "It doesn't make _sense_."

"Maybe it doesn't have to."

"Everything has to."

"Odd, coming from you."

"Maybe. Doesn't change anything."

"But what if it changes everything?"

Midna rose an eyebrow. "The hell're you getting at _now_?"

"The Legacy," the Doctor replied, as if that could explain it all. Midna shook her head, uncomprehending.

"I don't get it. What's the Legacy?"

"You don't know what the Legacy is?" he sounded genuinely shocked. "I thought _you_ would, everything you've seen."

"What is the Legacy?" Midna all but growled.

The Doctor opened his mouth to reply, then stopped, frowning in puzzlement. He reached into his jacket and pulled out a sleek silver mobile – Martha's, she remembered, kept on his person at all times in case Torchwood had an emergency. He flipped it open and Midna watched as his expression went smoothly blank in an instant.

Great. _Now_ what?

**o0o**

They burst inside the Noble household in record time. The Doctor pushed through first, shoved Jenny as gently as he could shove anything out of the way, and knelt at Rose's side, screwdriver in hand, glasses already propped up on his nose. Midna spared a sneer for Sylvia as she passed her, but nodded politely at Wilf, who had a worried little frown on his weathered face.

"What happened?" Midna asked Jenny. The Doctor hadn't exactly been very forthcoming about that part.

Jenny breathed out shakily and crossed her arms. "We don't know. One second, she's standing there complaining about you two, and the next thing we know, she's on the floor thrashing around like a fish out of water."

"Did she have any moments of clarity?"

Donna spoke up at this point, looking just as disturbed as Jenny. "One. Mumbled some nonsense, that's pretty much it."

Midna frowned. "Nonsense? Like what, exactly?"

Donna shrugged. "I dunno, just…nonsense stuff. Couldn't understand most of it."

"Most of it?"

"She seemed to be in a lot of pain," Jenny explained, nodding toward the sofa. "Said something about burning, and that someone was begging her for something, but she couldn't help them."

"Nothing else?"

They shook their heads. Midna sighed and rubbed a hand over her face.

"Did you notice anything else? Some kind of light, maybe her eyes were glowing…?"

Jenny shook her head no, but Donna looked thoughtful. "The timelines fluctuated around her pretty violently as soon as she collapsed."

"What do they look like now?"

Donna glanced over at the prone figure in the living room and cringed.

"Wild. Can't see any of them clearly."

"And how does that make you feel?"

"What's with the firing squad?" Donna retorted wearily.

Irritation spiked briefly in Midna before she knocked it aside impatiently. "I'm just trying to figure out what's going on. Anything you tell me could be important."

Donna shrugged. Suddenly, Midna noticed the rings under her eyes, the slump of her shoulders, the dimness of her eyes. "I guess it makes me feel a little queasy, then. Why?"

"Donna," started Midna softly, "how did you sleep last night?"

Donna looked startled at the question. "F-fine. Why?"

"Donna, I'm an empath. I can tell when you're lying."

If anything, Donna's shoulders slumped even more. Jenny looked between them, growing more and more worried by the second.

"I had nightmares," Donna admitted finally. She flicked a nearly imperceptible dart of the eyes toward the Doctor, who had his tongue between his teeth and a deepset frown. "Some of them were his, I think."

Midna thought about this for a moment, then nodded slowly. "That makes sense," she muttered. "You're a Time Lady, he's a Time Lord; a fundamentally telepathic race. Your minds latched onto each other, bled together."

Donna made a noise of revulsion. Midna smirked at the foreign ripple of disgust that roiled in the pit of her own stomach.

"It's not permanent," Midna assured her. "Until your minds can get used to the existence of another of your kind in existence, you'll have…transvestite moments."

More disgust.

"What about me?" Jenny broke in, looking confused.

"You're Gallifreyan," Midna clarified. "Not the same thing. You're telepathic, but it's limited. You've got two hearts and a lower body temperature than humans, but you can't regenerate and you can't see alternative timelines."

"And Rose?"

"Rose is…" Midna paused, though not out of confusion for she was going to say next. Her eyes widened. "Rose is me," she whispered. "Bad Wolf."

Without warning, Midna leapt into action, vaulting over the back of the couch and landing neatly in a crouch beside the Doctor, who didn't so much as twitch.

"Doctor," said Midna softly, "I can take it from her."

The Doctor's jaw tightened.

"I can save her."

His screwdriver clicked off.

"I have to. There can't be more than one wolf."

He put the tool in his pocket and swallowed hard.

"That was always the problem. I should never have been born with what I have."

He clenched his fists, never once looking away from Rose's taut, pallid face.

"Child of contradiction, I am. A dark angel. A Time Lord and a human and a _Mitgefühl_. Wise and naïve."

He shook a little beside her.

"But it won't end with me, I promise. Now," she took a breath, "take me to the time vortex so I can end this, Doctor."

"You won't die."

"I know."

"You'll never die."

"I know."

"An eternity of _fighting_."

"I know," she whispered, and he finally turned his head to look at her. His eyes were nearly black with internal agony.

"No one has ever had to do that for me before."

Midna managed a playful little smile for him. "Guess I'm the lucky first, then."

"There's no other way." It wasn't a question.

"Don't think of it like that," Midna admonished, her smile widening slightly. "Think of it as the eternal survival of a martyr."

"No dinner?"

No smile, but it was a start.

"No dinner." Midna agreed solemnly, but her eyes twinkled brightly at him.

The Doctor nodded once, then stood. He bent over and slid his left arm underneath Rose's knees and used his other to cradle her head to his chest as he lifted her silently.

Midna looked at their gobsmacked audience with a suggestive smirk. "Wanna join?"

A few minutes later found them inside the TARDIS. The Doctor laid Rose gently on the floor while Jenny plopped herself on the jumpseat and Donna, whose mother and granddad had elected to stay behind, leaned awkwardly against a railing. Midna stood at the peak of the metal ramp, hands clasped behind her back as she waited regally.

"What exactly can you do?" Donna asked Midna while the Doctor did his ethereally beautiful dance around the console.

"I can use every ounce of power I've got to get them to bow to me. They will fight, but they'll have no choice but to listen to what I have to say while they do."

"An' what will you say?" Jenny queried.

"I will show them humanity," said Midna, her eyes growing hard, "just like I showed the Daleks humanity. I'll show them the wonders and the horrors of who and what a human truly is and can be, and they won't be able to stand it."

"How can _you_?" said Donna. Midna shot her a curious look. "I mean, you're sort of a…hybrid, and all…" her voice trailed off uncertainly. Midna smiled gently.

"I was born to stand it," was all she said in reply.

"We're there," the Doctor interrupted. The pale green time rotor was rising and falling in a crescendo of mourning and triumph in the central column.

Midna sucked in a breath and walked slowly to Rose's side, where she dropped to one knee. She looked to the Doctor for permission, and he held her gaze for a long moment.

"Take my body to Midnight," she implored him quietly. "Burn it, so I can never return. The Guardian will protect you."

He gazed down at her steadily before slowly nodding.

Releasing the breath she hadn't realized she was holding in a slow, drawn-out sigh, Midna gingerly brushed a strand of hair away from Rose's face, noting with driven anger the cold sweat and pale, if heated, skin. She took two fingers of each hand and placed them on her temples, feeling Rose's thready pulse beneath her fingertips, and closed her eyes.

_Laughter, laughing, smiling, grinning, teasing…_

_Shrieks of joy in childhood, adventures others her age could hardly even dream of, smiles and love enfolding her so deeply she was happy to lose herself daily…_

_Family. Friends. So many faces, so familiar, so comforting…_

_Shattered, suddenly, by the little humanity she had in her; broken, forever, by cursed promises of a love that never lived…_

_Agony. Pure, rippling, excruciating agony; guilt as acid, fear as physical pain, love burning and twisting and then freezing inside of her; drowning, devastating…_

_Hope. Shining, glittering, eternal hope, left at the bottom of it all, the only thing left in the box, the only thing she could ever trust in. There was always hope._

_Always. A forever lived in a second, two eternities that ended in an instant. The rediscovery of hope, the rekindling of a flame, a flame that burned to live, a flame that roared in defiance of reality, that crackled in the chaos of a love that wasn't hers and which seethed gleefully to see that love grow as her own never could..._

_Hands hoping; times solidifying…  
__Eternal promises of forevers; gleeful tomorrows…  
__Colors blending, shadows hiding…_

It was _her_ turn to be the hero.

**o0o**

She smiles. It's pleasant, and she does it just to know she can. And she doesn't stop. Why should she? Why not? She has every reason in the multiverse to smile.

Where is she? She thinks she must be in Eternity, but she cannot tell. Worlds swim around her ceaselessly, and she can see everything, remember everything. Her memories should be fuzzy, and you would think they would be, but they are not. They are sharp and clear, delightedly so.

She's just an ordinary girl, really. A normal, everyday _Mitgefühl_-Time Lady-temporal superwoman-human hybrid saving the asses of ordinary somebodies and everybodies and nobodies who, in their gratitude, kill each other and hates and betrays and does every unthinkable thing you can think of. Ahh, the life.

She's still smiling. Of course, she technically _can't_ smile, for she has no _body_ – not exactly, at least, though she supposes she can pluck one out of nowhere if she wants to, though she can never return to the land of the corporeal that way.

A paradox tugs at her soul. She nudges at an Eternal, her only company (and they're really a very boring folk), and once they join forces, the problem is rectified in her perception of a few seconds.

She turns back to watching the Ephemeral Worlds. The Void has retreated, submitting to her and the Eternals' superior powers. Pete's World (as she affectionately calls it under the christen the Doctor had unofficially given it) is restored and healing, the Armageddon War forever leaving its scars but never taking from humanity their hope. The _Foundation_, as she can no longer deny it isn't, has moved on, and the other Worlds seem to have never noticed anything had ever happened to start with.

Love, she has observed, is just as powerful as she had always predicted it could be, and contemplates now on just how much her views on such love have changed. She once thought it was the most wonderful and the most horrible thing ever given to any universe. Now she compromises by saying that the two are not just synonymous; they are one and the same. Pain _is_ pleasure, happiness _is_ sorrow, chaos _is_ order. It all depends on your point of view, really.

Fascinating.

* * *

**Next is the epilogue, then I'm all done! Don't know whether to be sad or glad, really.**


	13. Eternal Midnight

There's a bit of a different style to this one, I think, though I'm not sure how that happened. I think I like it. Blame the American in me.

**Eternal Midnight: Epilogue**

She burned.

Oh, she wasn't nearly as bright as the sun, of course, but she still burned. She burned in all the ways that _really_ mattered, the kind of stuff you hear inspirational and angsty shit about when you're too young to know any better about the real truth of it all. She was the sort of unsung hero you dream you maybe were in a past life or something so that your life now could be worth living for; the kind of girl no one believes is really real but whom everyone pities and cries for because she's had a horrible, terrible life and her only freedom, in the end, is her inevitable death. The sad thing is, this gal ain't dead. She's alive, you just don't notice her. Inside us all, she's there, burning, like a tiny little fire, a miniscule flame of hope and glory and conscience and every other concievable feel-good thing of legendary stuff and then everything else, too.

On a desolate, abandoned world, she _burned_.

The principle's the thing. Whoever the hell said that probably didn't know what they were talking about, but they're right. What she _did_ didn't matter, nor why she did it, nor who she was or who her parents were or what she looked like. Fact was, she _burned_.

Plenty of people were there when her body went up in flame. The Guardian came, unwelcomed, aboard the TARDIS and gave them each a talisman, of sorts. It was supposed to protect them from the deadly radiation of the planet and the Guardian's own special "abilities". But everyone wondered if it was just for the ceremony of the thing. The _principle_.

The Guardian led them to a castle. Well, it didn't really lead them so much as it told them where it was going, for it couldn't strictly be seen. The Guardian, after all, was like the planet. It was insubstantial, abstract; an idea that niggled at the back of the brain and refused to go away. In some ways, the Guardian burned, too, though that could just be because of her. You never know.

In any case, the Guardian only existed because the visitors did, and since they believed it existed, it did. Wouldn't work any other way. That's reality. The insane see and hear things that aren't really there because they want to. We see and hear what we do because _we_ want to. Or perhaps it is no matter of wanting, but _needing_. We need an environment, so we believe there is one. We need company, so we believe we have some. Usually. Or perhaps, as in the case of loners who pity themselves for lack of sompany and then kill themselves because they can't have it, there is a necessity for a kind of balance where there are people who _need_ to _not need_ what everyone else does.

Is it really any better than chaos and discord? Oh, who knows? Thing was, it was the insane who really got to see the truth of the things. The _realness_. The bits that no one else could ever see. It's the _principle_, man.

He used the torch of an acrid black flame that the Guardian gave him to set the diamond pyre on fire. Perhaps he didn't have to; she was burning, after all. But that was eternities and infinities away as much as it was in the here and now, and he promised her he would do it right.

Then he buried the torch in the diamond grains beneath his feet and held the hand of the woman he loved and watched as the rest of her burned, too, a sickly blue-silver fire that flashed across their eyes and made unfriendly shadows on the walls of the courtyard that surrounded them.

Martha never met her properly, but she knew she saved the multiverse. Jack wondered what it would have been like if she had stayed alive with the rest of them; he may have fancied her, just a little. Donna missed the beautiful way the timelines seemed to dance to avoid touching her. Rose was almost glad to see the body destroyed, never to confine the poor girl ever again. Jenny, like everyone else, knew hardly anything about her, but she found she loved her all the same for what she did.

And it went beyond that, too.

It was the _principle_, dude. The _principle_ of what she did was what really mattered, not that it was her that did it or that she did it at all or that it needed to be done and she was the only one who could, or that she never belonged in the universe to start with so it was really no great loss now she was gone. The principle of it's the thing, dammit.

The Doctor wondered when people would stop dying for him. No, that wasn't it. It was the suffering. Everyone suffered everywhere he went. It didn't matter who it was or why, they always suffered. It was the principle of it that got to him. Maybe it would have been easier if she _had_ truly died.

So he let go of his beloved's hand, made to turn away, go back to the only home he had left.

But apparently she had decided that he'd let go of her one too many times, for as soon as she felt him begin to slip away, her grip tightened until he was biting his tongue to keep from gasping at the pain of it.

He couldn't understand. She didn't look at him or offer any explanation other than to slowly relax her hand until he could barely feel it, an echo of sensation, of agony, a tickle at the ends of the ends of his nerves. He found he couldn't move, so he didn't. He didn't even breathe. He just watched as Midna's body burned, watched as the flames shot higher and higher, impossibly high, stretching beyond the atmosphere, burning in defiance of the lack of oxygen that said it _couldn't_.

There was moral in that, somewhere.

Where?

In the _principle_, man. Always.

Even Donna was silent, her head bowed slightly, fiery hair that didn't burn forming a sort of flowy curtain around her head, like a halo. It didn't mean she didn't have anything to say, it just meant she was respecting the martyr. The _living_ martyr.

Wasn't everyday you got to say that.

Martha kept her eyes lowered, feeling not unlike an intruder. Her hands were rigidly laced behind her back, very still because fidgeting was just _wrong_. She felt, for the first time in a rather long while, small and insecure, like a freakin' child. She'd barely seen Midna at all, so why was she even here? Why had she decided that coming along was the best thing to do?

Dude, the _principle_.

Jack wondered, very briefly, if it would have worked between them. Nah. Gorgeous as she'd been, even at a mere fifteen, Midna wouldn't work with _anyone_. Not really. Now, the Doctor's daughter, on the other hand…

He got it. He understood. He saw things like the insane do, as they're meant to be, simply, not irrationally or with all those ridiculous strings attached. He saw it, understood it, but he was still human on some indefinable level. So, most of the time, he ignored it.

Typical.

Jenny found herself willing to fall on her knees and pray. It was strange, though. Midna wasn't a goddess. She was _human_, at heart. She was normal. Just "chosen", was all. Rather suddenly, she realized exactly why Midna always snorted disdainfully whenever she had deigned to say that, because it didn't say enough, didn't tell the whole story, didn't say anything about what that _meant_.

It was the principle of it, yeah? Not that she was the support that the two sides of the balance depended on, holding Fate to mold in her hands, though that was a large part of it, but she was _it_. Just like _that_; she was _it_. The thing everyone dreamt of. The ideal everyone lived up to, the love everyone lived for and the hate that drove everyone forward. The principle. Yeah, Jenny might get it. Just a little.

Rose stood quietly, watching the fire, allowing her hand to skim gently over the Doctor's, a whisper of what could be but that he was terrified would rule him when he most couldn't let it. Her eyes were wide, her skin shining and pale in the light of the fire and the planet and the sun.

Rose saw it all more simply. Maybe it was because she'd seen Midna's soul for herself. Truth was, there wasn't any bravery or glory or sacrifice at all. Midna was a coward as much as she was brave, not unlike the Doctor. In fact, Rose suspected Midna was more like her grandfather than any other member of her family. Perhaps this was why Rose could see her so clearly.

Didn't matter, though, 'cos there was still that moral in there. The principle. Easy to see once you did. Simple.

'Sides, it was just another adventure, yeah? An important one, of course, and possibly _the_ most important one, but still just an adventure. They would move on. They had to, or Midna's work would be for absolutely nothing.

So they stood there and watched her burn, and moved on.

**o0o**

"Jenny!"

"Right here!"

Jenny tossed something in Rose's direction; she caught it deftly, never breaking her stride, and turned around so she was running backwards. She trusted Jenny to tell her if she was about to ram herself into something.

Rose pointed the screwdriver at the platoon of robotic humanoids that were chasing them, flipping the setting to 165G and flicking the switch. With a hiss and collective groan, the Critofolian guards collapsed in a melted heap of metal in the middle of the corridor.

Quickly, Rose turned back around to see that Jenny had nearly arrived at the door. She tossed the screwdriver back to her, and within seconds they were outside.

"Shit!" Rose hissed, her arms snapping out to catch Jenny as she teetered precariously at the edge of a poorly-placed cliff.

"This way!" Jenny gasped, recovering quickly. She grabbed Rose's hand and they ran without ever looking back until they rammed into the TARDIS, barely pausing long enough to unlock the door before they were through.

Together, they piloted the TARDIS back inside the complex, opened the doors just long enough to usher Donna and the Doctor inside, and then they were gone.

Another adventure.

**o0o**

Martha hissed in pain, damn near twisting her ankle completely around. Frustrated, she tore off her heels and kept running, following Rose and the Doctor. Jenny was ahead of them, running faster than any of them could ever hope to, and Donna ran beside Martha, apparently unfazed by her own shoes. Damn Time Lords and their goddamn superior physiology. She'd like to tell them where they could stuff it, but this was hardly the time.

A javelin shot past her ear and skimmed the Doctor's shoulder, gouging the skin. He yelped, more startled than anything else, and Rose glanced over at him. She stumbled as they ran, eyes widening as she saw the blood seeping through his jacket – the black one, the one of Doom. Her instincts told her to tackle the man and pin him down until he let her bandage the wound, but, again, this wasn't the time for that. They just had to _run_, or she wouldn't ever be bandaging anything.

The principle was in the running, she decided. It wasn't just saving worlds and people and seeing new things, though that probably took up the majority, but the running was what gave you the thrill of the hunt, so to speak. It ignited that flame, fanned it, and it _burned_.

It was the best investment in shoes she had ever spent.

Later, she complained to the Doctor, "You are _never_ wearing that suit again." Really, the thing was just bad luck altogether, no matter how good he looked in it (hey! She could still _look_…) or how many times he insisted that one day, just one day, he would get it right and take the girls to a ball they could actually sit back and relax at and _enjoy_.

Right. Like that was even possible with _him_.

Maybe that was why she always ran to Tom, but then came back to remind herself that she could run for real.

Always worth it, though. Just another adventure.

She ducked and an arrow flew over her head, embedding itself harmlessly with a quiver in a thick tree trunk. Then she had to swerve to dodge the stupid tree.

Yep. Worth it.

**o0o**

They were dancing.

It was sort of an accident, really. They'd landed in Cardiff to drop off Martha and Jack had come bursting out of the Hub babbling something about intelligent Weevils running rampant in London. By the time they got there, thirteen people had been torn to pieces and two more had gone missing in the same area. It was only after the problem was taken care of that they realized that the missing innocents – _innocents_, for Christ's sake! – had been eaten. Dreadful stuff.

Then Ianto reminded them that it was the third-year anniversary for the start of Torchwood Three. Somehow, Jack convinced the Doctor to stay – though this may have had more to do with the fact that Donna threatened to hide all his bananas and leave nothing but pears to eat in the TARDIS if he didn't try and relax for just _one night_.

Gwen brought out the drinks, Mickey set up the music (both terrestrial and non, oddly enough), Ianto ordered pizza, Martha called her husband over, and suddenly it was like they were one big, normal family.

Still, there was this music in the background, hidden underneath the music that blared from the speakers, the kind of music that you can't hear but know is there, the kind you want to dance to but don't quite know how. It was the sort of music they danced to because they were the kind of people who saw innocents torn to pieces and eaten and then had a little laugh about it and a dance when it was all said and done.

_Walk away, if you want to.  
It's okay, if you need to.  
Well, you can run, but you can never hide  
From the shadow that's creeping up beside you.  
There's a magic running through your soul,  
But you can't have it all…_

_Whatever you do  
I'll be two steps behind you  
Wherever you go  
And I'll be there to remind you  
That it only takes a minute of your precious time  
To turn around; I'll be two steps behind…_

Odd, the way some memories come back to you like that, isn't it? It's just a song, after all. One damn song the poor bastards of Def Leppard released into the world Just a few words. Just a couple of notes. Maybe a bit of dancing _could_ be okay, then. Maybe it's not. But there's only one real way to find out, and that's by doing it. So they did.

It was different from before, though. Different from the last time they danced, and the time before that. There was a new sort of energy between them, an energy they usually spent by getting involved in everything they could afford to. Here, on the impromptu makeshift dance floor, there was no running. No thrill, you'd think, then, but there _was _that. There was just no running.

It had burned away to ash.

Oh, but that thrill was there. She felt it every time his fingers came anywhere near hers, felt it as he refused her every dance outwardly but was drawn to her anyway, felt it when he gave up on dancing and settled for holding her close. Neither of them had gone near the drinks; the Doctor because he had no interest, Rose because she knew she couldn't afford to lose her inhibition.

It was a rather interesting tightrope they walked. Eventually, they both knew, either the tightrope would snap or they would both simply topple over, but the ending would always have the same result.

They were cowards, though. Rose knew now, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it wasn't just the Doctor's cowardice Midna had inherited in her parallel world. It was all of theirs. She could _taste_ it in the air, the tangible fear, the terror of something not one of them could explain.

Jack feared eternity. Jenny feared the inevitabilty of a love she was clearly trying to fight so she could spend more time with a father she feared she would be somehow separated from one day. Martha feared that she would not be able to return to Tom after going off on one of those fanciful adventures of hers, and that he would live on without ever knowing what might have happened to her. Donna feared, partially, that she would make Midna's future come to frution, and feared, wholly, that she wouldn't. Gwen feared that she might not ever see Rhys again, whether it was the next day or the day after that or a few hundred years before that. Ianto feared he may hurt Jack if he got too close with his comparitively fleeting life.

The Doctor feared…everything. And Rose feared for him, and they feared for each other, they feared what they could do to each other, and they feared for the universe if either of them should lose the other ever again.

There was still that line, though there was no princple.

_No_ principle, man.

**o0o**

A year after her body burned, the new TARDIS was fully grown. The Doctor took a deep, steadying breath as he prepared to give it to the only person he ever could give it to.

"Dad?"

"Are you happy?" he blurted before he could rationally think of something intelligent to say. He could be like that sometimes.

"What?" Her brows furrowed; she was confused. He felt an odd urge to chuckle.

"Are you happy?" he repeated, more calmly.

"I…I suppose so, why?"

The Doctor frowned. Why couldn't anything ever be _simple_ for once? He ran his hands through his hair, a habit that caused the strands to stick straight up in the air in every direction. He ignored it and the amused smile Jenny gave him.

"Are you sure? Not…embarrassed by your old man, are you?" he decided to try lightening the mood just a little. He only succeeded in making her worry, of course.

"Dad? Are you all right?"

"I'm always all right," he replied automatically. A little voice in his head snorted at him, and he thought it sounded rather like Donna. His daughter rose an eyebrow at him skeptically, which he studiously chose to ignore.

"What's this all about, then? What do you want?"

"What? Who said anything about wanting?"

She just stared at him. Honestly, did women _practice_ that?

He sighed, reached into his jacket, and pulled out the new TARDIS, which currently took the form of a tiny pod. It would grow to be big enough for her to climb aboard once she affirmed she wanted to be it's owner. TARDISes were good like that, after all.

"This is yours. If want it. I mean, you don't have to. But…I just thought…it's been over a year, so I thought, maybe, you might want to –"

"Dad!" Jenny interrupted him a little too loudly. He cringed and looked away, swallowing. He missed her half-amused, half-concerned gaze. She took the pod from him carefully, delicately smoothing the surface over with her fingers and watching with delight as it lit up with sparkling multicolored lights. "What _is_ it?"

"It's a TARDIS," said the Doctor quickly, before he could change his mind. He avoided her eyes when her head snapped up sharply.

"A TARDIS?" she repeated flatly. He nodded nervously. "A _real_ TARDIS?" another nod, couple with a bit of fidgeting. "You _grew_ a real TARDIS?" a sheepish shrug this time, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand and stopping as soon as he realized he was doing it. "For me?"

"If you want," he added quickly. He didn't want to make it look like he was kicking her out. No, hardly. He just thought she might like having "a ride of her own", so to speak.

And then, quite suddenly, he was seeing stars and his ribs were damn near cracked. He must have said something (he most certainly did _not_ squeak), for she quickly released him, pecked him on the cheek, gave him another hug (gentler this time, thankfully), and skipped off down the hall away from the kitchen, calling Rose's name at the top of her lungs. Rose, of course, already knew what the Doctor had planned – had known from the start, in fact, and he wondered if she would be at all disappointed.

The extras were the nets that kept them from being swept away, after all. Their lifelines. A critical strand of that tightrope. It was a dangerous move, he knew, giving Jenny that TARDIS and encouraging her to use it, but he couldn't help it.

He was getting tired of pretending to follow a principle that had never existed.

**o0o**

"Martha!" Jenny squealed, apparently completely forgetting about the pod clutched firmly but carefully in her hand as she rushed over to her friend.

"You're pregnant?" Rose stated the obvious, clearly surprised, as Jenny and Martha parted. "How long've we been gone?" she shot a lighthearted glare at the Doctor, who feigned mock-hurt but then turned to Martha in curiosity of the answer as well.

Martha shook her head, grinning. "Jus' a couple of months. Long enough, though," she laughed, patting the little round bulge on her stomach.

"Congratulations!" Rose declared happily, but the Doctor thought he could detect something else in her voice, too. He understood that, if he wasn't just imagining it. That was another net gone. They couldn't take Martha traveling while she was pregnant, there was just no way, and after that Martha would have the child to take care of.

"Oh, and Sarah-Jane said to say hi for her," said Martha later as they sipped at tea Tom had readily prepared for them.

"How is she?" asked Rose.

"Same as ever. Right competition for Torchwood, though, I'll tell you. Always rushing to get to some scene of crime before each other. We still get the most dangerous ones, of course." She always referred to Torchwood with the collective "we" now; she was settling in, getting used to her life. That was good. Really.

"How's Luke?" the Doctor queried lightly.

"On his way to Uni, at his rate," answered Tom, shaking his head. It was amazing how easily he'd integrated with their strange family. "Still savin' his mum at every turn, though."

"Good to hear," said Rose, smiling. Though it was probably his imagination, he thought it looked a little forced. He could understand that, too. It was domestic, this small talk.. It made his skin crawl, itch, plead and scream inside his head for something _else _–_ anything _else.

**o0o**

Though it was no surprise, Donna got on with Jackie Tyler so well they may as well have been twins. Everytime they visited her, the Doctor got yelled at twice as much as he used to, got hit what felt like three times as often, and was laughed at continuously by Rose. He couldn't see what was so damn _funny_. It wasn't _his_ fault she was so jeopardy-friendly, for Rassilon's sake!

Little Tony took the Doctor's side, surprisingly, so the Doctor spent most of his time at the Powell Estates teaching the boy to play alien sports and getting him to laugh at some of his more ridiculous adventures. It was oddly soothing, these moments with a toddler who could barely stand up to the height of the Doctor's knees. It was fascinating, too, the way Tony seemed to percieve things in that way all children did.

Once, while the Doctor was teaching him how to build a temporal-kinetic shifter with the sonic screwdriver (and failing), Tony just stopped what he was doing, rolled onto his side (for they were both lying flat on their stomachs) and faced the Doctor. He just went quiet, looking at him, and the Doctor found in his wide Bambi-brown eyes the speculative thoughtfulness he often saw in Rose. Having that gaze turned so intensely on himself was rather disconcerting, and he fought the urge to squirm.

"Find anything interesting?" he asked suddenly. To his amused delight, Tony jumped, then bit his bottom lip guiltily.

"Why sad?" Tony said, catching him off guard. The Doctor's smile slipped briefly.

"What?"

"You sad," Tony stated plaintively, reaching out with a tiny, trembling hand to touch the Doctor's brow. The Doctor surprised himself by letting him. "What for?"

The Doctor smiled ruefully, mirthlessly.

"I'm not sad."

"Yes, you is!" Tony stuck out his lip stubbornly in an action so reminiscent of Rose he found himself gawping for just a moment.

"No, I'm not," the Doctor argued, sighing. He wasn't in the mood for this. Why couldn't they go back to playing with the sonic screwdriver.

In fact, he was about to suggest just that when Tony cut him off, "So is Wose."

His adorable way of saying her name was lost on him as his words registered.

"What?" he said again. Damn. The kid was wearing off on him, that lack of decent vocabulary.

Tony beamed. "See!"

The Doctor shook his head. He honestly didn't.

Tony frowned again, that thoughtful look on his face again, like he was trying to figure out how to save the world without killing everyone. Or maybe that was just Rose.

"Wose no cry," he said, sadly, like it was a crime.

"What's wrong with that?"

"She s'pose to, though!" Tony whined lugubriously.

"Why is that?"

Light, he reminded himself sharply, keep the tone _light_.

"'Cos she sad. Girls s'pose to cwy when they sad."

"Nah. Don't _have_ to. What makes you think she's sad?"

"She looks wike you."

"What?" Rassilon, he was articulate today.

"Here," Tony cried, brushing his hand over the Doctor's brow again with his thumb. "And here," he pounded the Doctor's chest with his little fists. Then he gave a massive yawn, and the Doctor took the opportunity to scoop him up and put the conversation to a definitive end.

That was enough of that, he thought.

But enough of _what_, exactly? he thought later.

**o0o**

They met on an alien planet, in the system of Grhstaik over three billion light-years and a couple more billion literal years away from twenty-first century Earth. And when they met, the last net dissolved, and the last critical strand they stood on snapped like a twig.

The Ligyvaros were invading, but from what the Doctor remembered, they were perfectly peaceful. His concerns landed them smack dab in the middle of the Sevenstile War, named so because it had lasted for seven centuries, much to his bewilderment. Then they found that the war was with the _Mitgefühl_, bringing back a few memories they would really much rather have lost a while back. Apparently, the Ligyvaro people had built a resistance to the _Mitgefühl_ powers and, once they had learned they had been manipulated into being pathetic pacifists for three millenia, they aunched an all-out attack on their homeworld. The _Mitgefühl_ gave as good as they got, however, and so the war didn't end with the initial strike; it went on…and on, and on, and on… They didn't even know what they were fighting for anymore.

The Doctor, Rose and Donna were caught and tried for treason, found guilty without trial, and sent to prison to await the _Mitgefühl_ version of the guillotine. They took his screwdriver too, dammit.

Then the rebels came to the rescue, the ones who opposed the war entirely and who had tasted, through the newcomers' emotions, the bittersweet tang of freedom from the military rule they'd been subjected to for so long. He would remember those first few moments forever, the moment he thought _might_ be coming but wasn't completely sure of, the moment when suddenly he and Rose had no one else to fall back on. Donna looked at him, and the Doctor knew that was when it happened. Then, later, when the guards had been alerted and they were running, not for the first time, for their lives…

"Hey, you! Silent rebel! What was your name, again?"

"Nicholsen, ma'am," said the dirty dishwater-blond fellow in an American accent with a playful little half-grin on lips that, to the Doctor, belonged to someone else. "Nicholsen Black."

The time travellers froze right there, in the cellar of the prison, hunted by psycopathic empaths, inches away from their escape route, quite unable to move another muscle.

Nicholsen and his buddy Gregory halted, seeing that their party had stopped. "What's wrong?" asked Nicholsen.

Rose and the Doctor exchanged a look that must have lasted a lifetime. Then they looked at Donna, who was staring at Nicholsen like she'd never seen a man before in her life. He knew for sure, then, that Donna wouldn't have to choose whether or not she would risk it. She already had.

**o0o**

Nicholsen, apparently, had been more than just a _Mitgefühl_; he was a Time Agent, too, and Gregory was his partner. They had every intention of ending the Sevenstile War, and so, with the Doctor's help, they did. Then the Doctor offered to give them a ride in the TARDIS, asking them where they would go if they could go anywhere. But they only wanted to go home, and Nicholsen offered to show Donna around Chicago. The Doctor stayed the night just in case she changed her mind, enjoying a nice, forcibly light night with Rose in a Chucky Cheese of the early twenty-first century.

The next morning, Donna knocked on the TARDIS doors. She actually _knocked_.

She said she wasn't going back. Not right away, at least. She still wanted to travel, still wanted to see things, but she wasn't going back. Maybe Mickey could come with them, sometimes. Yeah, right. He was married, he reminded her. Settling down. Didn't even work for Torchwood anymore. Preferred advances in computer science to the thrill of the adventure. Silently, he wondered if should envy the man, as he used to. He was puzzled to find that he didn't.

Then she gave him that _look_, the sad one that reminded him that she was his best friend, the one who knew him possibly better than even Rose (who happened to be in the shower while all of this was occuring, which was just as well) did. In return, he gave Donna a warning glare. She had no idea what she was doing.

She rose an eyebrow. Yes, she did.

He cocked his head to the side. How could she?

She smirked and mimicked him, crossing her arms. She'd lived with him for two years.

It was his turn to raise an eyebrow. So what? Now she knew everything?

She shook her head and sighed. No. That wasn't it.

The last thing he heard from her that day was a singular phrase that burned itself into his mind for every day he lived thereafter.

She unfolded her arms and gestured to the general vicinity of her chest – her hearts.

"I'm not gonna make the same mistakes as you did, Doctor. I'm not that _stupid_, for one thing. And I'm not sorry."

Then Donna Noble turned on her heel and walked away.

It was the principle of the act that he remembered the most.

_And I'm not sorry._

**o0o**

The nets fell away. The tightrope snapped. They didn't bother trying to stop it.

He found himself staring at her whenever he had the chance, uncaring as to whether she caught him at it or not. It wasn't long before she was doing the same.

It was strange, this slow, agonizing seduction. They each knew they loved the other and that the other loved them. They knew where they were going and that their time together was always limited, but they couldn't seem to help but dance. It was a beat they knew well, the one they were dancing to, but which they most often had ignored in the past because it wasn't the time for it.

Now he found himself utterly incapable of pretending it didn't exist. Because it did. And it was too late now, whatever he had ever said before.

They didn't visit anyone for a long while. They didn't need to, really. They were alone on the TARDIS, after all, and they could always go to some random time and country where there was no danger of running into anybody when they ran out of milk.

They sought trouble on a daily basis. Why, he didn't know. You'd think he would have loathed the thought of danger when he was growing closer and closer to Rose like a planet orbiting a sun that was on the verge of becoming a black hole. He wondered if she felt the same, then decided promptly that she must.

It was completely random when they finally came out and said it. They were lounging in the console, the Doctor attaching the completed temporal-kinetic shifter to the insides of the TARDIS, Rose quietly reading a book and glancing up just to watch him every so often. He found himself watching her, too.

He wasn't even looking at her when he said it, his hands tangled in wires, grease in his hair, oil marring his face and in danger of staining his precious pinstripes, the jacket of which was crumpled on the floor a few feet away.

Neither was she, her eyes narrowed just slightly, tongue between her teeth, fingers following her place along the page she was concentrating so hard on.

"I love you."

So plain, so simple.

At first, they didn't even realize they had said it, let alone that they'd done it at the same time as the other. Then Rose cleared her throat, and when he looked up, she was smiling, her eyes twinkling maddeningly. He flushed in comprehension and, mortified, tried to defend himself, but it was too late and she leapt like a tiger at her prey.

Metaphorically.

He cleared his throat.

"That was…unexpected."

Rassilon, did she _have_ to smile like that?

He found himself nodding rather dumbly, still immersed knee-deep in TARDIS parts.

"Yeah. Yeah. Yeah…that was. That it was. It was…unexpected. Yeah."

What the hell happened to being nearly a millenia old?

She giggled at him. He scowled at her, but she only laughed harder.

He tried to get back to work, installing the shifter, but like fuck he could even _think_ about concentrating right now.

The Doctor grimaced at his own thoughts, thinking bitterly only of their goddamn treachery. Her laughter finally ceased, but he could tell, somehow, that she was still grinning.

Then, suddenly, she was hopping down beside him underneath the console, shimmying her hips and twisting her upper body to get even with him.

His mouth went dry.

"Rose," he murmured, straightening slowly and bringing her up with him.

"Doctor," she whispered, trusting yet apprehensive, uncertain, exactly, of what he would do.

He understood.

And, oil and grease and TARDIS parts or not, he lifted his hands, cradled her face in his his. Her eyes closed and she sighed breathily. Her breath smelled of something metallic but not unpleasant, of something vaguely fruity and possibly banana-ish. His fingers explored her face, learning it, memorizing it by touch as he long since had by sight. The smooth flawlessness, the caked makeup, the too-wide square jaw and dark eyebrows, cheeks that dimpled just…like…_so_ when she smiled, the forehead and its glorious temples, over which he allowed his lips to hover for just a second, and wide, walnut shaped eyes with thin lids which fluttered a little under his gliding caress.

Her neck was even better. He brushed her bleached hair aside almost impatiently, his hands closing around her throat carefully, feeling gently for the pulse point and biting off a sharp moan on feeling the vibrating life under his fingers. Quickly, the Doctor lowered his head and nipped gently at the bared flesh, delighting entirely too much in the groan Rose supplied him with, her vocal cords humming under his hands and shaking him loose.

He continued to lick and bite lightly at her throat and neck, teasing, playful, smiling. She opened her eyes then and glared at him, but she was so obviously enjoying herself. He chuckled when she gave up on keeping still, running her hands over his arms, his shoulders, trailing up his cheeks and tickling his sideburns before tangling inextricably with his hair. She gasped when he bit a little too hard somewhere near her shoulder and drew blood, but her body arched into his, so he rather took that as a good sign.

And then, somehow, they were latched together, all moans and groans and eternal kissing. She all but dragged him by the tie to some room he barely took notice of but for the bed, and he only noticed that when she pushed him down on it and straddled his hips, still liplocked with him and clearly determined to never let him go.

That was all right. Because he wouldn't ever let her go. You didn't have to understand the principle of the thing to understand that.

But _really_…did she have to be wearing so many clothes right now?

No, she didn't, he decided, and he regained control of the situation (not an easy task, certainly), flipping her over on her back and trailing his hands smoothly down her sides like they'd always belonged there and always would, and maybe they did and always had. She tore off his tie with her teeth and undid his trousers with her hands while he pulled off her top and it was all a new kind of dance, of whimpers and submission to each other and of flesh and blood and _life_ and _living_ and oh, his _rain trembled softly on her lips_ as she whispered his name, again and again, always with "I love you", and then a little, entirely unsatisfying brush of velvet lips to some bit of pale skin she'd just managed to reveal.

She heard him weep and cry out in ecstasy, tell her things he'd never told her before, always talking, never stopping, never looking back, because he dare not out of shame. And, slowly, she beat the shame out of him, fighting for control, warring, never losing yet hardly winning, surrounding him with her love and everything else she had and promises of forever she knew she couldn't keep and confessions of hurt and assured hurt, of agony and suffering that came with being with him and how she honestly would never ever have it any other way, then clamping her mouth firmly over his when he tried to protest that she should never say "never ever". Screw him, anyway, for doing this to her.

Literally.

It's like, the _principle_ of the sex, dude. That's what counts. It's what _counts_, man.

Neither of them had ever been in control, so who were they kidding?

The principle's the fucking _thing_, dammit.

**o0o**

It was exactly seven months and fourteen days later that they decided to visit their friends again. They both blamed Donna.

It was only a week for everyone else. Mickey was still married and living the life they couldn't have and didn't want.

Amazing, time travel.

**o0o**

Then Donna got pregnant. It was a boy, and Nicholsen wanted to name it Alonzo, because he'd always wanted a son called Alonzo. Who was Donna to argue with that?

Rose and the Doctor had a long, quiet talk that night.

**o0o**

"NATALYA!"

"What?"

"The _hell_ did you do?"

"I just said she was pretty!"

"…that's not a compliment here."

"I gathered that, Dad, thanks."

o0o

"Where's Alonzo?"

"Worried about him, are we?"

A snort. "Hardly. I jus' wanna be sure I still get to smack 'im."

"You _like_ him!"

"Who? Alonzo? Mus' be talkin' 'bout yourself, then. I hate that bastard."

"Yep. You definitely like him."

"Do not!"

"Do too!"

"Do not!"

"So why are you denying it so hard?"

"Because it's not true!"

"Yes, it is."

"Goddammit, Tony, if you tell 'im, or _anyone_, for that matter, you're dead."

"Aye, aye cap'n!"

"Shut it."

**o0o**

"I miss her."

"Never thought I'd ever hear _you_ say that. What for?"

He shrugged. "I just do. Maybe I've got a fetish for pain."

A wicked, impish grin. "Really, love? Good to know."

Wide eyes. "I didn't mean that!"

"Sure you didn't. Do me a favor, though?"

"…what?"

"_Never_ mention my mum in bed again. You hear?"

Squeaky voice. "Crystal."

Silence.

"So, when are we going to…you know."

"The funeral?"

"Yeah."

"Whenever you're ready, love."

**o0o**

"Dad? Why's Mum still young?"

"What?"

"Mum. She's still young. Why?"

"Don't know what you mean."

"Like hell you don't. Gran…Gran's _dead_, Dad. Mum doesn't look a day over twenty! _I'm_ almost twenty!"

"I know."

"So?"

"So what?"

"That's it? You 'know'? What's that supposed to mean?"

"Natalya…" he sighed. "I don't know why."

"_You_?"

"Shut up." Much as he envied her hair, she could be incredibly annoying. He refused to believe that she'd gotten that from him.

"Seriously, though. You must have some idea."

A far-off look. "Yeah. Some idea."

**o0o**

"Cole!"

"What _now_?"

"Have you finished your homework?"

An exasperated sigh. "Yes, Mum."

"Good. 'Cos the Doctor's here, and Alonzo's with him."

"So?"

An amused smirk. "Don't you know what day it is?"

"Humor me, Mum."

"Any day you want," she whispered, sotto voice. She winked.

"What? Wait, really? Can I? _Please_?"

Laughter. "Yes, Cole. Say goodbye to your dad before you go, though."

"YES!"

A few minutes later, the Doctor yelled, "Allons-y, Alonzo!" at the top of his lungs, and shrieks of laughter followed.

**o0o**

Cole glowered at Rose.

"Why?"

"I told yer mum I'd look after you, so that's what I'm doin'."

"There's nothing wrong with Tasha!"

"Really? So what's this, then?"

Silence.

Then, strangled, "That's not hers."

"She was _usin'_ it, Cole."

"Liar."

"Have I ever lied to you? _Really_?"

"Natalya has."

"Natalya's not me, and she did that for your own good anyway."

"Yeah. Some good it did. She ran off with a bloke with a dad that can tell the world what everyone's feeling. Fantastic."

"Oh, come on. It's not so bad."

"Yeah?"

"Yeah."

"Feels like it. Bloody stupid ape, that's all I am."

"Here, take it. Talk to 'er."

"But I thought –"

"Jus' _talk_ to 'er, Cole."

"Right."

"I'll tell Martha n' Tom you've gone to get me somethin' to drink, all right? Now hurry up, get out of here!"

A small, grateful smile. "Yes, ma'am."

**o0o**

"ROSE!"

"Hello, stranger."

"Rose?"

"Far as I know."

"Thank Rassilon! You're alive!"

"Why shouldn't I be?"

"You got shot."

"I did? Don't feel like it."

"Don't look like it, either."

"Shot by who?"

"Cole."

"Cole? You don't mean…not Cole Milligan?"

"The same."

"But…I thought…I thought he…"

"Guess not."

"Poor Martha."

"We don't have to tell her."

"Yeah. Yeah, we do. Where is he?"

"Dead."

"How?"

"He killed you."

"Oh. But 'e didn't, I'm right here. Like…oh, God, Doctor, you don't think I'll be like Jack, do you?"

"I don't know."

Their fear was tangible. He'd killed a man without hesitation because he killed _her_. It didn't matter that said man was one of his best friend's sons. It didn't matter at all.

And now she couldn't die.

**o0o**

"Never thought I'd be the one to outlive _you_."

"You won't."

"You don't know that."

"She must have done it on purpose."

"Who? Midna? Maybe. But then why am I like Jack?"

"Midna…was a romantic."

"Not really. She jus' saw the truth of things."

"How do you know?"

"I knew her."

"S'pose you did."

**o0o**

"It's already different from the way she said it was for 'er."

"That's because she told us."

"Is it, though? 'Cos we haven't really changed anything based on what she said, have we? The opposite, really."

"Yeah, that's true. And it is different."

"Not sure I like different so much anymore."

"Nor me, love. Nor me."

They watched as Donna Black, with dark brown hair and bright silver eyes shining with shed and unshed tears, buried her husband. Alonzo, never a man to cry, sniffled. They'd saved the world together. All of them. Nick would always be remembered that way. Allons-y, Alonzo, he'd said. A farewell.

**o0o**

"We named him Jeff. He's jus' like Cole."

"Don't compare Jeff to him."

"I know. We won't."

"Seriously, don't. 'E doesn't need that. None of us do."

"I'm sorry."

"What for?"

"I raised him to betray you."

"No." Rose smiled. "He stood up for what he believed in. _That_ is what you raised him to do, Martha Milligan. Remember that."

"Thank you."

Another smile. "What for?"

**o0o**

"Married."

"Yeah."

"That feels weird."

"She's not your daughter."

"Might as well be. And this is _Jack_ we're talking about."

"I know."

"'Ave you talked to 'im?"

Feral grin. "Oh, yes."

She giggled. "Don't hurt him too badly. We still need him."

"Do we? Nah. Just kill him a few times, he might get the message."

"Oh, I don't know."

"Oh?"

"Doctor…she's pregnant."

His eyes darkened. "Is she, now?"

Rose bit her lip hard to keep from laughing at him.

"Yeah, she is. She didn't tell you?"

"No, she didn't."

"Musta wanted it to be a surprise. Are you surprised?"

"No."

**o0o**

"So. Donna. How's travel with Jenny?"

"Better than with you."

"Oi!"

"It is! We're not running for lives every single day!"

"We do not! But that's good to hear."

"What about you an' Rose?"

"What about us?"

"How's that comin' along?"

"Same as usual."

"Ah. …How many prison resorts does that make, then?"

He threw his banana at her. Mickey grinned from across the table, content.

**o0o**

"Anastasia and Devon Harkness, get in here RIGHT NOW!"

"Daddy?" "Whassup?"

"THIS!"

"Oh." "Oops?"

Twins. What can you do?

**o0o**

"Tony, you need to get yourself a man, mate."

"I got one."

"No, I mean a _real_ one."

"I got a real one."

"Yeah, that's why he's never sober, right? Come on, Tony, let's go down the pub, find you someone _really_ real."

"Yeah, 'cos the pub'll be a real help, thanks, Natalya."

"It's where I met Alonzo."

"Yeah. On a different planet. As a baby."

"Wanna go to a different planet?"

"Hell no! I'm stickin' with Mickey an' _his_ family. I'm not gonna be like you lunatics, doing who-knows-what all across the universe."

"It's worth it."

"Not to me, it isn't."

"Then let's get you summat that _is_ worth it, yeah?"

He sighed. "All right. But if you go anywhere near the beer, I'll kill you on behalf of your father."

She rolled her eyes, hands on her stomach. "Like I'm that stupid. Come _on_."

**o0o**

Jeff grinned toothlessly as Natalya tossed him up in the air.

"You look good with a kid."

"Sure, 'cept this one's not mine."

"No. But we'll have one soon, darl."

His drawling American voice made her shiver. He wrapped his arms around her waist, kissed her neck, drummed a mindless beat of inaudible music on the huge mound of her abdomen.

**o0o**

Rose let her hair grow out, then cut it when the roots were long enough.

"She didn't mention this."

"Maybe she didn't have to."

"Maybe it didn't happen."

"Too many maybe's, dammit. Just kiss me."

**o0o**

Donna regenerated again, with blonde hair and brown eyes this time. The irony was not lost on any of them.

The music that played for her seemed to change its tune the longer she went on without Nick. Maybe she was sorry, after all. But when he asked her, she gave him a silent hug, and he could tell she wasn't. He wished he had been that brave the first time he had ever met Rose.

**o0o**

Annie was three, now. This seemed _off_, somehow. Surely she'd been younger than Midna? Or maybe it was just that Midna seemed to burden everything on her own shoulders that she seemed to consider herself older.

If Midna had ever even existed. They doubted it, sometimes.

**o0o**

Exactly forty-nine years from the day she burned, she was born again.

"D'you think she…?" but Rose couldn't finish.

"I don't know, love."

o0o

"It's not fair."

"No, it's not."

"It's not fair."

"Nope."

"How can you not _care_?"

"I do."

"Don't look like it from here."

"Doesn't."

"What?"

"Not 'don't', Midna. 'Doesn't'."

Maybe that was all she needed. Normalcy. Just the principle of it, sometimes.

"Don't matter," she muttered, emphasizing that first word. She knew her grammar. She just didn't care.

He sighed.

"Where do you want to go?"

She shrugged. What did it matter?

"It matters," he said quietly, as though reading her mind. She couldn't tell if he could.

She shook her head.

"Where do you want me to go?"

"It's up to you."

"No, it's not."

"Yeah, it is," Rose spoke up for the first time. "It is."

Midna snorted. Rose and the Doctor exchanged looks.

"Do you…want to go with your gran?"

"No." Midna replied promptly.

"Why not?"

Midna's expression didn't change, but her vivid golden-green eyes shone darkly.

"She doesn't care."

"How can you say that?" Rose exclaimed, horrified. Midna looked at her.

"She lost her love," said Midna simply. "She cares about me, but she doesn't…" she paused, struggling to find the appropriate words. "She doesn't want to be reminded of him," she decided on at last.

"Who do you want to go with, then? Mickey?"

Midna winced, just a little.

"Can't I just live on my own?"

"No," said the Doctor instantly, but Rose hit him on the arm, shaking her head.

"'Course you can," she said to Midna. "But do you want to?"

Midna sat abruptly in the jumpseat, her head cradled in her hands, running her fingers agitatedly through her short, messy golden-brown locks.

"It's not fair," she murmured after a while. Then she looked up. "Can I stay with you?"

She sounded so lost, so frightened, so small. Just like she'd been when they first met her, even if she was better at hiding it then.

"Yes," they both said together. Why not? She was only five, but they could manage. And maybe they needed it, too. Natalya hadn't regenerated. Neither had Alonzo. The world had killed them in gratitude for their saving their sorry asses. But they still had Midna.

**o0o**

Because they had a time machine, she was older than Annie and her brother Devon and even Mickey's son Freddie. It was interesting, really, how the months and the years piled up on each other like that.

"When's your birthday?" Annie, eight, asked her once.

Midna, ten, looked at her thoughtfully for a long moment.

Then, after a while, she replied, "I don't know."

**o0o**

She fell in love again, with someone proper this time. On a different planet, not Earth.

It didn't last long.

"I'm Midna, by the way. What was your name?"

"Richard."

"Pleased to meet you. Now get the hell out of here!"

They ran. And ran.

And he died, in the end.

Though she'd only known him for maybe two days, she was inconsolable.

**o0o**

"All right, that's it! What's wrong?"

"What? Nothing's wrong."

"Stop lying to me," he hissed. "What's wrong with you?"

"It doesn't matter."

"It always matters."

"Like you'd know!" Midna finally screamed. "Like you know what it's like! When I…" she stopped, blinking away tears. "It hits twice as hard," she whispered. "I fall harder."

"You don't know that."

"I do, though!"

"You're young, yet."

"You always say that!"

"I'm a thousand years old."

"Ish," Midna corrected automatically. Then she sighed. "I don't know. I just feel like…this isn't the first time."

"Not the first time for what?" he asked sharply.

"Never mind."

"Midna," he growled warningly.

"You said you were immune," she said, swallowing, refusing to meet his gaze. He could only gape at her for a long moment.

"What?"

"Yeah, that's right," Midna told him, straightening to look him right in the eye. He blanched at what he saw there. In that moment, she looked like the Midna he'd known…before. "You're not. Apparently."

Apparently. Dammit, why didn't he see it before? All this time…

"I'm taking you to Martha."

"What? No!"

"We can't risk it any longer. You should have told me."

He was already flicking switches.

"You can't!"

"I have to."

"NO! Dammit, _listen_ to me!"

Suddenly, she had him in an excruciating wrist lock. He gasped in pain, paralyzed.

"That's better," she muttered, smirking.

"To Jack and Jenny, then?" he suggested hopefully. She glared at him.

"I'm not living with a bunch of _brats_, Doctor." She never called him 'Grandad' or anything like that. It probably too weird if she did. She rarely called Rose 'Gran' because of that. "Your daughter and her husband included."

He pouted childishly. She snorted.

"Where did you learn to do that?" the Doctor decided to ask her, still in pain.

"What? This?" she adjusted her grip to tighten the pain. He wheezed. "Venus, remember? They trained me for three months so I could fight for my life in a duel against the warden."

"Oh," he hissed. Respiratory bypass or not, his breathing was getting shallow. "Right. I remember that."

"Yeah, you materialized the TARDIS around me just as the fight was about to start. Nice timing, by the way. I think I was too busy slapping you to say that before."

He cringed at the memory. "Right. Sorry. Thanks."

She gave him a bemused half-smile.

"Can you let of me now?"

"No."

"_Why_?" he whined pathetically.

Midna sighed. He tried to wiggle his fingers experimentally, but they were numb.

"I didn't tell you because I knew you would try and kick me off for my own good as soon as you found out."

"Know me that well, do you?"

Midna rolled her eyes. "Who doesn't? Kicker-offer's what your name should be, not the Doctor."

"Kicker-offer?" he repeated, wrinkling his nose.

"Yes," she said seriously. "It suits you. Now, before I let you go, you're going to answer a few questions of mine."

He sighed. Even at fourteen, women were evil.

"Shoot."

"What are you hiding from me?"

"What?" More out of dread than surprise, his eyes widened. Midna made a noise of impatience and twisted his wrist so that it made a horribly sickening crunch. He groaned.

"I know you know what I mean."

"It's a long story. And not one you need to hear."

"I don't feel a thing. Try me."

"With Rose."

"What?"

"Rose needs to be here, too."

"What the hell for? She's sleeping!"

"Then wait until she wakes up."

"Fine. Next: Why are you so fucking _sad_ all the time? It _really_ gets on my nerves."

"Language," he admonished, yelping when she twisted his wrist again in response. He sighed. "The Time War."

"Ages ago," Midna dismissed. "You've got me and Rose now."

"Rose and I," he corrected. For several seconds afterward, he couldn't believe he hadn't turned to ash under the strength of her savage glare. "Your mother," he finally blurted.

Midna frowned and loosened her hold slightly. "Again, that was ages ago. And you've got me. Sayin' I'm not enough?"

He shook his head. "Still not her, though."

"And neither is Gran," she said softly, referring to Rose. They shared a look of understanding. "But that's not all, is it?" Midna persisted softly. The Doctor shook his head. "What is it?"

"Rose," he murmured finally. She rose an amused eyebrow at him. He rolled his eyes. "Not like that. She's…she can't die, Mid."

"I know that," said Midna.

"I don't know why."

"So?"

"She could outlive me. I wouldn't wish that on anyone."

Midna let out a loud bark of laughter to which he jumped and irritated the wrist lock, causing even more pain. She pretended not to notice.

"You're still going on about that? Damn, you're consistent."

He gawped at her, stunned.

"Look," said Midna more calmly, releasing him and standing back so he could see her better, "everything's going to be fine. She's not going to outlive you, and you're not going to outlive her."

"How do you know that?" he asked, cursing himself for the sliver of hope that chilled his spine as he rubbed his tender wrist.

Midna looked away, watching the time rotor without really seeing it.

"Just a feeling."

**o0o**

A year and a half later, the three of them sat in the kitchen.

"That wasn't me."

"It sort of was."

"No."

They were silent for a moment. Midna sighed and leaned back in her chair, reclining in the relaxed way that only she could when she _wasn't_ relaxed.

After a few seconds, she sighed again.

"I'm not her."

"You could be."

"Never."

"Why not?"

"It's the principle of it," said Midna simply. The Doctor and Rose gave her identically confused looks. Midna sat up and folded her hands across her lap. "It's the principle," she repeated. "The Midna you knew before I was born gave her life because there was no choice and because she had nothing else to live for. Me, I would do it because I have _everything_ to live for."

They understood. Sort of.

"The principle's the thing, y'know?"

They agreed.

**o0o**

Martha said she wanted to be burned where the other Midna had been burned. Tom said he would go wherever she did. The Doctor insisted that she didn't really want to be _burned_; Martha told him he couldn't tell her what she wanted either way. Then she went on to complain about how unfair it was that he was a thousand years old and didn't look a day over thirty-five.

"Ish," Midna corrected.

Martha smiled. Jeff, her second son, and Ike, her third, held her hands. Tom was on the bed beside her, eternally asleep. Rose and the Doctor wondered why they didn't envy them.

"Take care of yourselves," she said to Jeff and Ike. "Don't let him," she nodded at the Doctor, "convince you your life's longer than it really is."

Martha Milligan, he thought as her eyes closed for the last time. She'd grown up.

He held Rose as she cried. It was the principle of it, though. That was what she cried for. The principle. Everyone was going to die around her. Even him, they both suspected, no matter how often Midna managed to make them hope otherwise.

So Martha burned, and they moved on.

**o0o**

"Where's Donna?"

Jenny's smile faded, the life sapped from her eyes. Jack wrapped his arm around her waist, his own eyes downcast. What the _hell_?

"Auntie?" Jenny swallowed and looked tentatively at Midna, then at the Doctor, then at Rose.

"She just…" she choked. "She wouldn't regenerate."

They froze for Donna.

**o0o**

Midna let the tears fall, let herself remember.

Midna.

"What? Who's there? Doctor? Rose?"

No one. Frowning, she looked back at the picture.

_Midna_.

She stood, dropping the photograph, tensed and ready to run or fight.

I can't hurt you.

"Where are you? Who are you?"

Look in the mirror.

Warily, Midna crossed her bedroom to the vanity. Nothing out of the ordinary, as far as she could tell. Just herself, as usual.

You're not me.

"Of course I'm not," Midna retorted. "Or I wouldn't be talking to you, would I? Now show yourself!"

I can't.

"Why not?"

I don't exist.

"Clearly, you do. Who are you?"

Chaos, I suppose you could say.

"Chaos? The hell is that s'posed to mean?"

It's the principle of it, dude. Just listen.

"To what?"

The music.

"What music?"

_Listen_.

_Stars, stars, shine Red so bright  
__O' sons of heaven filled with Light.  
__Moon, Miss moon, so lonely in the Dark  
__Though dawn will come, she leaves her mark.  
__Storm, wild Storm, lovely in his Rage  
__Ruthless is his tamer, the Wolf in her Cage._

_Bad Wolf will howl in the night to the sun's rays of Vigor,  
__howl in the night to the Storm and his rage,  
__howl in the night to the darkest side of the shining Moon,  
__howl in the night to the learned court's soul,  
__howl in the night to the Howling itself,  
__howl in the night to the Eternal granting it the same –  
__Bad Wolf will live on, eternal as love_

_And the Red Star will carry this from the Wolf and the Storm,  
__carry it from the dark into the wise light of Midnight's shadow,  
__carry the Day of Birth from its haven Ready for Battle  
__to the rebirthing of the Foundation._

Midna jerked.

"What was that?" she gasped.

The prophecy. The Legacy. Thank you.

"What for?"

Exactly.

Midna looked down. There, propped up against the mirror, was the photograph. She grabbed onto it like a lifeline.

**o0o**

At one time, most of her family was alive. They wanted their memories to never fade away, so they made some they could crystalize.

This one was on the planet of Felspoon. The grass was tall and blue, the sky a deep emerald, shining in the silver light of the dual suns. The clouds were deep black and purple and orange, framing the suns in their setting and casting ethereal shadows over everything. Around the meadow of deep blue grass was a forest of crimson pine, and just beyond the forest could be seen the dimly pink outline of the tallest mountains in the universe. They could move, those mountains, but were frozen in the picture. Midna remembered, vaguely, that on that day they actually _were_ still, unmoving as the wind was, peaceful, honoring the family moment.

A long oak table was pushed off to the side, surrounded by plastic gray chairs that Midna remembered as being bloody uncomfortable. Maybe that was why no one was sitting in them. Everyone was _doing_ something. Well, that was her family for you.

She glanced at the other pictures on her bed, ones of the people who were missing in the one she held in her hand. There was Jackie Tyler, her great-grandmother who'd died before she was born. There was Cole Milligan, Thomas and Martha Milligan's first son, who no one ever talked about but for whom Midna sensed much animosity and regret and tragic horror and betrayal. There was Pete Tyler, whom they all secretly thought was out there somewhere in the universe but who everyone outwardly presumed was dead. Then there was Nicholsen "Nick" Black, her grandfather, the one her grandmother couldn't live without. And then there was herself, because she was the one taking the picture on Felspoon and she wanted to see everyone grouped together.

Jeff and Ike were wrestling with Freddie in the deeper parts of the grass. Annie chased Devon, who was covered inexplicably with whipped cream and banana filling, with a pie cocked behind her head and ready to fire. Rose and the Doctor were snogging in the shade of a crimson pine, but had pulled apart in the moment the picture was taken to laugh at Annie and Devon. Jack was leaping toward the wrestlers, presumably to join them. Donna, Jenny and Martha were making funny faces and dramatic gestures with their hands as they chatted animatedly. Tom and Mickey were standing with their arms folded, having a staring contest.

Midna's breath hitched in her throat when she saw her parents. Alonzo had Natalya pinned to the ground, mercilessly tickling her sides, both of their faces flushed, mouths open in joy and laughter, teeth glinting in the sun and their hair windswept from their activities. Midna had just escaped them, she remembered. She'd stolen the Doctor's sonic screwdriver while he was kissing Rose and crawled surreptitiously from one side of the meadow to the other. Being short, she'd had to climb up on top of a four-foot boulder to get a proper shot, and her tiny fingers had stumbled, uncoordinated, with the settings before she found the one she wanted. She had waited for just the right moment, when everyone had the happiest expressions on their faces, when the Doctor and Rose were facing the camera and when her father had finally chased down her mother and swept both of them off their feet.

As a result, she held the crystalized memories in her hand, and cried.

But she wasn't sad. No.

Like the Doctor, she hadn't ever really moved on.

Now, she thought, she just might be able to. It was time to stop shining, as she had for so often now.

Eternal Midnight, that was what _she_ was, before. Before this family ever existed. A principle. An ideal. A concept of chaos. Something everyone wished they could live for. A romantic, she supposed, though she wasn't, really. She just saw things as they were. And she had the power to make them stay that way, too. Rose and the Doctor, Midna suspected, would get their happily ever after for as long as they both wanted it. The universe needed them, after all. It was the principle of it, mostly.

_And I'm not sorry._

But now it was _her_ turn to be the hero.

It was her time to _burn_.

**o0o**

When Rose and the Doctor awoke the next morning, it was to a tearstained photograph and a new attitude in their charge.

She burned, and the universe finally moved on, content.

* * *

Wow. That's the end of it. How...weird. Can't believe how it all came together. I expected it to be more about the Doctor and Rose than it is.

I want to thank everyone for their wonderful reviews and encouragement! I want to say that I couldn't have done it without you, but then I'd probably be lying. Still, seriously, thanks.

And as for those who haven't reviewed…REVIEW! Pwease?


End file.
